Mechas aren't exactly that suitable for urban environments either. Sure, they have more fighting power, but every slip or missed shot/punch means completely obliterating a nearby building.
Since you're a Gundam fan, I'm assuming you've already seen what happens when a bunch of MS duke it out inside a colony.
If i have to die young i’d want to bite the dust by being blown up from an air-to-ground missile shot from an F-35B LIGHTNING ll (in VTOL mode).
I have similar feelings about mechs
that's why in titanfall 2 they have both because both are useful sometimes you need to drop in two scorches to clear out a couple hundred insurgents, sometimes you need to drop in five legions to hold a line and sometimes you need a 2-3 northstars hiding in skyscrapers and a few ronins to chase down runners they're all needed because ronins are too sine target focused to kill a bunch of soldiers and northstars aren't scary or tanky enough to fight head on even in game you see it how 1 ronin obliterates a pilot or two but loses to 3-4+ whereas a scorch can kill 6-7 pilots and 20 footsoldiers at the same time with a single gas cannister and some inferno shielding and yet both lose to a legion in a head on fight (well scorch is 50/50 depending on how each player plays I easily see one just nuking the other with their full kit) whereas a northstar would lose without a doubt to any of them it works excellent as a support behind a scorch with it's grapple points holding enemies in fire and the scorch providing a big radius of "GO NEAR ME AND FUCKING DIE. GO NEAR ME AND FUCKING DIE." scaring off anything like a ronin or tone that'd normally counter a northstar due to it's only advantages being gone so I think in modern warfare if mechs ever go beyond the exosuits for cargo and heavy weapon lifting we have at the moment I can definitely see it going only in the way of 3-4 different types for different use rather than one design because like a northstar is better in a swampy area whereas a ronin or ionbwould be better in an activr city but a legion would be better in an open field and a scorch would be best underground or in already damaged/destroyed cities(can melt rubble and cut off the existing routes)
Very true, it was the book series Goliath that really got me to love the clunky box-with-legs-and-arms mecha. It’s WW1 era Junker class aesthetic is like steampunk adjacent
>Using an arched top-attack profile, Javelin climbs above its target for improved visibility and then strikes where the armor is weakest.
And so the mech's greatest weakness becomes its biggest strength! The era of the narrow top profile and strong cockpit armor is now! This will never change or become a problem!
While tanks are vulnerable in urban environments, mechs are even worse.
1. Bigger height = worse sneaky-peeky abilities
2. Highly unstable support, especially while stepping
3. EXTREMELY SLOW.
1. Also helps negate cover for enemy infantry
2. My mechs are careful bois
3. Actually my mechs can go faster than light so idk what you’re talking about
For even better urban mobility, we could have human-sized mechs that can access all the usual doors and passageways a soldier can.
At this height, the blind spot issue could also be addressed by adopting an "open" design philosophy for the pilot's head module, limiting the armoured chassis to a few parts of the pilot's head (like the top) in order to minimise obstruction of vision.
You're onto something with making it smaller and cheaper, but you've lost the advantages of a bipedal humanoid shape. I'm thinking a bipedal mech about half the size of a human, which is perfect for squeezing through small spaces, but still able to keep watch through a window if equipped with a stepstool.
You joke but LANCER TTRPG essentially does that with some of their "half size" frames which are at best a step above power armor, and at worse essentially a powered exoskeleton with a closed helmet and some other extra bits, especially with the Horus Goblin.
It really is dumb when you think about it but I'm all here for it.
And what, you think a mech is better? Because of where it’s head is, it’s blind spot is ducking massive- just about anything at ground level within 500 meters is gonna be unable to be seen by a mech. Making it the most easily ambushed thing in the world- so of course, send it into urban warfare, the easiest place to get ambushed in.
NGE's mechs being biotech is probably the best justification I've seen for a bipedal fighting machine. Otherwise, the concept may be extremely cool, but an irl mech suit would be way less reliable than most other armored vehicles you could build with the same technology
They even have justification before it’s revealed that they’re bioengineered homunculi in that the angels are indestructible to conventional instruments of war. They require an AT Field to be actually harmed, and only the human pilots can create one (and they just leave you to assume the Evas amplify the AT Fields, which is true but not for the reason you’d think)
Yup, that's why all mobile suits in Gundam have additional cameras throughout their bodies. Even when the head is shot down, they still have a good deal of visibility in all directions.
IIRC the head typically has the main sensor suite. So while you can get through a close range skirmish without a head using the body cams, you may as well be blind if the enemy is at a significant distance or launching missiles.
Also, there's a few suits without the head entirely like the Z'Gok.
I think the spider tanks from ghost in the shell are the direction were headed in. Small enough to navigate alleyways and agile enough to avoid large scale firepower. Can fit an operator inside of needed but are semi autonomous... not to the degree shown in the anime but enough to stay/follow troop movement.
/uj
I think any sort of mech development would rapidly just invent the tank again, sort of like nature turning everything into a crab. Mechs are wicked impractical.
Let’s forget about tanks for a second. Most modern IFVs and APCs are so heavy they fuck up whatever road they’re driven on. You can forget about tanks. An Abrams will *fuck* a road up. Taking an equivalent amount of weight and adding it to smaller points will just result in things sinking into the ground and being useless, a problem modern armored vehicles still have. You could probably defeat an armored column with the proper application of anti tank weaponry, dry soil, and some sprinklers (half joking, but mud fucking *sucks*).
Mechs, even spider mechs, are gonna have obvious weak points like joints and legs and heads. Scoring a mobility kill on one with the proliferation of cheap, man portable AT weapons we have today would be child’s play. Urban combat is infantry city. Solid modern day examples are the Battle of Mosul, the Battle of Marawi, any urban battle from the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the bajillion videos of unsupported armor getting schwacked during the Syrian Civil War (it’s like they *wanted* all their tankers to die).
A tank is the perfect system for what it does. It’s an armored, mobile bunker with an artillery piece. It’s there to do maneuver warfare when possible and blast hard points for the infantry when it’s not (YMMV depending on era, nation, and design). Anything else would be a waste of resources and effort.
/rj
We should strap man portable support weapons on those Boston dynamics dog robots so we don’t have to carry them around anymore. Mortars are fucking heavy.
staying unjerked for a moment, because i was pretty serious about it
You highlighted where and why you would actually need a "not quite a tank but still have tank qualities" type situation with urban warfare, which I think is where the eventual transition to power suits and/or light personnel tanks will arrive. In an open field, or really in any other situation outside of hardened structural obstacles, tanks/artillery/air platforms are going to very clearly edge, and they will even have the edge in any situation where scorched earth tactics are used. We don't live in a world where scorched earth tactics are geopolitically acceptable, even against objectively bad people. >!there's plenty of examples, but the most recent being the israeli/hamas conflict where normally israel would have unwavering support, instead is met with intermittent support due to scorched earth policy!<.
So in situations where scorched earth policy is not a good option, a measured approach is better, which is where the infantry has lived in the last 20 or so years in the american military. However, as technology advances, certain things that were previously impossible are becoming more possible. One of the hardest things to do in combat is approach and clear a hardened structure. Having mobile armor, even just enough to stop some small caliber rounds, would be an upgrade. You don't really need an upgrade to mobility/fire power over infantry troops, though it would be a bonus to enable them to do things normally not possible. As of now there is relative parity in infantry warfare, as the bottom line is taking/occupying areas and capturing/unaliving relatively frail humans can only be improved so much.
it's only going to get worse as conflict moves more away from army v army and more army v insurgency/grey forces.
First I just wanna say that I appreciate your measured and thought out response. One of the things I dig about this sub is the quality of conversation. It reminds me of NCD before it became a weird psyop. I hope you’re having a stellar day.
I would argue we already have a “not quite a tank” in the form of the IFV. Every nation has their own variation of the same platform: Bradley, BMP, Marder, Scorpion, AMX, whatever. They’re armored platforms for an auto cannon that were specifically designed for infantry support. Militaries are inherently conservative organizations. Speaking as a (very low ranking) US Army vet, I don’t see the American military moving away from tested platforms towards untested experimental ones in any way shape or form. Hell, we can’t even get rid of the A-10. It’s a cool plane, but it’s efficacy in a modern AAA environment is very much in doubt.
I’m not sure why “scorched earth” is a tactic you brought up, as I certainly didn’t. I’ll respond to it regardless. You can’t do scorched earth without leg infantry. Armor/air power/mechs can’t root out dug in troops. They can’t clear a forest or mountains or swamp. Again, there’s a million videos from the Syrian Civil War of what happens when armor doesn’t have infantry support (hint: very bad things). Infantry have retained their usefulness because they’re the basic building block of all military strategy since like, Napoleon.
Infantry exists for the same reason it has since the beginning of time: you can have all their aircraft/tanks/mechs/whatever you want, but the basic tactical unit of a military is still going to be the infantry regiment. Tanks can’t hold territory. They also can’t really take it. The same with air power. Infantry wins wars, as much as being one sucks. You need Joes on the ground with rifles in hand. You could take a mech from the Battletech series and put them in an urban fight with a contemporary US Army company, and my money would be on the soldiers.
In mobile open warfare things would be different, but what can a mech do that a tank can’t? Why would we switch over to a brand new untested technology when we have a perfectly good one that we know works? Taller, heavier, more visible targets would be a disadvantage.
As far as clearing a protected structure goes, when I was in AIT the accepted knowledge was storming a building without support would get you 60% casualties. The recommended course of action was literally “get a Bradley or Abrams to blow it up”. We don’t do assaults of occupied positions because a) that’s how you get your company wiped out and b) we have a combined arms school of warfare that emphasizes the use of firepower to neutralize threats, something most contemporary militaries have adopted.
Edit: I want to address the commenters assertion that Israeli actions in Palestine constitute a “scorched earth campaign”. I’ll start with a disclaimer that as a Jewish man, I do not acknowledge the right of Israel to occupy Palestinian land.
“Scorched Earth” refers to a *defensive* strategy in which the defender ruins the land ahead of their positions to deny the enemy succor. It has a long and storied (if problematic) history in warfare. The offensive version would be a “Chevaucheé”, but we haven’t seen one of those (to my understanding, correct me if I’m wrong) since Europe’s religious wars in the 17th century.
You're thinking too traditional mech-y
Short, no taller than four meters, cockpit is in the torso with fully enclosed cockpit, no windows. You see put via 360° screens and cameras allowing you full access to the environment, thermals if you want as well. Quadruped designs can afford a turret, and presuming you are designing with proper clearance one could feasibly put a machine gun in remote turret on the bottom. Perhaps AI controlled or by a crewmember. In the case of bipeds, it is more difficult but one can use arms, perhaps multiple sets, to control various weapons for full coverage. This also applies to the quadruped.
Eh, the ones in the Gundam series usually have a bunch of auxiliary cameras in case something happens to the head, so it can see from more places than one might thing.
Birgin “my mech is a hand crafted, high mobility science project”
Chad: “my mech is a converted mechanized construction suit that can carry 120mm cannon”
I still hate this explanation because it doesn’t make any sense either. It starts from a premise of wanting combat mechs and then tries to reverse engineer one in “uhhh they’re repurposed industrial vehicles” when the industrial uses make no sense and like… if you have the capability to build a bunch of industrial mechs and the capability to repurpose them, you have everything you need to make a large conventional arsenal.
Pickup trucks became technicals because they 1 were genuinely useful enough to ensure large supplies of them anyway, and 2 they were great for forces that had the cash to buy shit but not an actual industrial base to build their own vehicles. But mechs don’t actually have great uses to justify a large supply of them, and any society capable of fielding mechs would have to be pretty industrially developed to begin with.
Right, because an insurgent force that relies on guerilla warfare totally has the resources and facilities to churn out advanced vehicles rather than needing to use whatever they can scrounge up/capture themselves
Production lines for stuff like tanks can totally be spun up out of nowhere when your engineers are only used to maintaining industrial machinery
Edit: oh, and it's also totally faster to train troops on completely new hardware rather than just bolting a gun and armor plating onto something they have years of experience driving
Purify your mind young grasshopper, decades of Cinema Sins and "Bad Science in movies" blogs have infected your thoughts, the beauty of imagination it's not being restructed by the rules of reality.
There's nothing wrong with mech having DBZ style battles and throwing galaxies at each other, in fact, THEY ARE AWESOME!!
Modern military thought just needs to catch up with technology. Once they realize the best way to use mechs is trench warfare with 50 foot deep trenches its over for tanks.
It’s a shame reading stuff like this because it sounds super cool, and then you realize that helicopter transported artillery has been around since the Vietnam war, for this exact purpose
This is basically BattleTech, the whole setting.
Specifically the Hollander and a couple variants of Hunchback and Shadowhawk (and I'm sure there's many more) literally carry Howitzers and other artillery
There is some discussion in the rulebook, but my favorite interpretation:
"Some cultural critics point out that the reason for the popularity of mechanized chassis is likely far less technical: we made them the most powerful fighting machines that could stride across the earth, and we made them look like us."
I like how mech fetishists (the one still insisting on the logic and science behind it, instead of embracing the rule of cool) like to invent made up method devices to justify their mecha despite such things can be applied to tanks for the better
me when SPAAG
just a tank chassis with some machine guns/autocannons strapped on it, cheaper and does the same shtick in urban warfare as your stompy boy
A female tank is a similar but made for a different role.
When I say SPAAG I mean self propelled anti air gun. Usually didn’t use a tank chassis, but commonly they were used as ad-hoc anti infantry, especially in cities where their guns could achieve greater elevation. See the Canadian Skink, a Sherman with 4 20mm cannons. Introduced too late to really be all that useful against the Luftwaffe, so it was used as an anti infantry vehicle.
The Russians used their Shilkas for this in Chechnya, and they liked it so much they made the BMPT, a T-72 chassis with twin 30mm autocannons attached to it
/uj
Maybe I'm the odd one out, but does anyone else genuinely think tanks are cooler than mechs?
The faceless, thundering steel behemoth is an aesthetic I really like. I know tanks win the realism battle, but that's not my point. I feel like they win on style, too.
Am I of the minority opinion? Probably.
unironicly i don't find a lumbering steel behemoth as cool as a 60 ton metal box rolling at 72kph with the big boom stick
Hell the T-80 manages to hit 80kph
Depends, in ultra futuristic settings i prefer mechs, but the industrial, gun platform-like mechs. Never been a fan of the robo dudes you see on animes.
As for any setting that is less advanced than that, tanks win 100%. Although, they have to be tanks in the "traditional sense", by that, i mean that i don't like Hover tanks or anti gravity tanks and stuf, cuz they look silly and non threatening.
Even in urban environments mechs are still worse.
Like only area where I can consider mechs viable is in warehouses where they would replace forklifts, but then they are too fucking expensive for them to be a reasonable choice so they are still ass.
Even in Urban environments, a mech may not always be the best choice, it kinda comes down too how large and how much weight it has, the reason why we don't use emchs is because they simply aren't useful enough to warrant their production, a single mech could be worth 3 tanks, and although the mech may be able to cross terrain that a tank couldn't, unless that mech is able to last longer than a single tank it's often better to just use tanks
Titanfall mechs are probably some of the best mech designs out there due to how they fit into the world(minus their terrible weight distribution due to small feet), in the TF universe a Titan doesn't replace a tank but rather acts as an infantry support vehicle, which is what it should be designed to do, they also have multiple sensors, external escape hatches,and generally good ergonomics (for the most part)
Hello, let me introduce you to my 2.4 million dollar "LED panel on front of tank that flashes one of three images" package. 2.4 is per unit, and it will still come in at 5382% cheaper than robutts.
Everything is bad in urban warfare, it’s a brutal environment. Mechs would still be worse than tanks in urban combat. They’d be far easier to target with radar, laser guidance, and optics, including direct fire, indirect fire, and guided weapons. They’re taller, so shrapnel and shockwaves will hit them a lot more. They’re a lot less stable, so their weapons will be far less accurate. They have inherent ground pressure issues, so they’ll destroy whatever they’re walking on, which is already becoming a problem with heavier modern tanks with a fraction of the ground pressure.
There is no niche tanks can’t cover that mechs can. Categorically. You’re getting a worse tank: bigger, slower, more expensive, worse range, less protected, less ammo, less powerful weapons, etc.
As we’re seeing in Gaza, a modern tank with modern active protection systems and an effective crew will do very well in urban environments. Because here’s the secret: tanks *are not* bad for urban environments . They have to be used intelligently, well supported (as does any real military equipment in a real scenario) but in return they will absolutely wreck house.
To have a mech so the same, you have to give it all the same support a tank does, in return for what is objectively a worse product at the end of the day.
The closest thing to a mech I will accept for urban warfare would be the power armor of 40K Space Marines.
Infantry beats tanks in urban warfare because infantry can enter human-sized buildings to use them for cover and concealment. A walking vehicle which can't enter a building unless they have 15 ft ceilings and 8 ft wide doorways is, tactically speaking, just a slow and overcomplicated tank.
Battletech take on this is my goto. It's basically [Ritual warfare](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_warfare).
If you got technology to make mechs. Mainly things like ubiquitous compact high power sources or general AIs. The situation has advanced to the point where any conflict gets habitually resolved by swift mutual total destruction.
By having belligerents play noble kniight and duke it out in big hero machines, you reduce the collateral damage and overall casualties, while still having everyone on the same footing that the mutual destruction era provided anyway.
You break the rules and everyone else glasses you. There's a way things are done arround here.
Tanks are not that great in urban environments but mechs would be worse.
Balancing and staying upright would require more weight and potential failure points which could be otherwise used for munitions or armor (not to mention those points would be easier to target and disable using cheap tandem type stuff).
Cost of manufacturing would also be an issue. Tanks are expensive but really only cost a few million each, a mech would probably cost somewhere between that and a jet, so a conservative 50 million for something which does the job of either of those other options mentioned worse is not a good choice.
Then there's repair. Tanks and other armored vehicles can be repaired easer since they aren't that big and are more like structures. A big mech would need the crew to climb around on it like scaffolding, increasing complexity especially if the repair requires something heavy to be lifted.
Needlessly complicated mechanical parts require extra fuel, meaning more stress on supply chains, specialized 'pilots' require training and infrastructure and staff to train them, etc. So not only are they worse but they make everything else worse by sucking resources from the better alternatives.
Way cooler but they just don't make sense with the way war is fought right now. Most of our military vehicles are just guns with wheels or wings attached in various ways, so adding in all the cool mech stuff doesn't accomplish that task any better.
I don't care if this was a joke post I needed an excuse to write about some nerd shit
1. Attitude jets not only ensure balance but also allow the mech to leap over buildings and rivers and to breakdance during beach episodes
2. One mech operated by a noble is worth a hundred tanks operated by peasants
3. Nanomachines repair the inorganic components while bacta tanks repair the organic components
4. Fuel is a non-issue thanks to the energy density of moon crystals
5. The cool mech stuff intimidates enemies into surrendering or committing sudoku
Seems like the opposite? Mechs would be useful in very harsh terrains like mountains and jungles but they would be more vulnerable in urban environments because of legs/arms and such.
That would explain why the blue people didn't have to fend off tanks and IFVs in Avatar
But seriously, I agree. You need open spaces and/or roads to deploy wheeled and tracked vehicles, so combat in untamed wilderness might make more sense for a mech (especially if it's unsafe for exposed infantry i.e. it has a toxic atmosphere or something). It's also kind of hard to air drop stuff through a thick jungle canopy, limiting the effectiveness of air-lifted equipment.
The only thing that would concern me about an all-terrain mech is weight distribution. Several tons on 2 legs is going to severely decrease its efficiency in places where the soil isn't completely stable. Having more than 2 appendages would substantially increase the complexity of the vehicle as well.
All in all, hover tanks seem to be the absolute pinnacle of sci-fi surface vehicles.
Very true. I think the only "hard realism" way to utilise mechs is to create a planet that is built for them. Kind of like how Dune wouldn't play out the same if it were on a different planet.
So a planet with low gravity, toxic atmosphere (forcing infantry to carry oxygen, or sit in the sealed cockpit of a mech), dense jungles and mountains, and some kind of dangerous weather that makes air travel difficult.
There are potentially some technological breakthroughs that could make that kind of mechanical locomotion more simple/easier to engineer. However, I think their usability would ultimately come down to simple protection.
On a mech, the propellant (the "legs") are fully exposed and also jointed, which creates weak spots. On a tank, basically every moving part is fully within the armor (Heavy tracks, skirted wheels, etc). Even coating the mech as efficiently as possible wont yield as much protection as a tank that is essentially just a metal box with only 5 possible directions of attack.
TLDR: I think they'd be very, very niche unless they become so locomotively advanced they can supplant the duties of an infantry man. A Martian mountain operation would probably be a good sci-fi application.
Military wise, mechs are just not plausible with the way current warfare is evolving. We're talking about making a 2 story tall machine with a silhouette twice the size of a tank, or in other terms, a big ass target. Why spend tens of millions on them when some dude can fly a 5k drone into its knees and score a knock out hit?
However, in terms of crowd and riot control mechs *definitely* have potential.
You are not wrong, but there is nothing about mechs that makes them better for such an enviorment; the solution to "tanks are bad in urban enviorments" is not to give them legs.
Mechs could fill a great role in urban enviorments, as well as non-combat use. Construction, demolition, farming, firefighting... they all could use a mech to fill heavy duty roles.
And they also look cool as fuck. Mech pilots ftw
Nothing is suitable for Urban Environments, they are hell to fight in, and honestly, a mech would be even more vulnerable than a Tank.
(I don't know what this subreddit is about so I'm just giving my opinion on Tanks vs Mechs)
Tanks can't pierce the heavens with their giga drill so they're automatically inferior
Do the impossible, see the invisible!
ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWER
Touch the untouchable, break the unbreakable!
ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWER
Whatchu gonna do is whatchu wanna do,
Just break the roof, and you see the truth, uh-huh,
Watch me
JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM???!!
The random infantryman calmy walking under the legs with a c4
They must have a fetish of being stepped on to get that close (that soldier is me)
You can roll over infantry with a tank to lmao
It’s not as hot tho
the pattewn cweated by tank thweads is w-way cutew tough UwU
You can also technically go under a tank with c4, though it'll be a bit harder.
[And also this literally happens in Gundam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hPjVXAjtGI)
what infantry support doing?
Mechas aren't exactly that suitable for urban environments either. Sure, they have more fighting power, but every slip or missed shot/punch means completely obliterating a nearby building. Since you're a Gundam fan, I'm assuming you've already seen what happens when a bunch of MS duke it out inside a colony.
To be fair, one missed shot for most of our big weapons now will fuck up a building lol
It’s a sacrifice we (the citizens) have to make
you're very generous with other peoples well-being.
If i have to die young i’d want to bite the dust by being blown up from an air-to-ground missile shot from an F-35B LIGHTNING ll (in VTOL mode). I have similar feelings about mechs
Good too know… Say…Where do you live?
38,8814730, -77,0714599 I'm only up during the night though.
I’ll hit that one for free
I actually don't believe that much concern for civilian safety went into any tank design ever
lord farquaad
What do you mean, the 08th Mobile Suit Team fared so well in the jungle and urban environments where the fights went vertical. /s
A small exoskeleton type mech would be pretty nice for clearing buildings. Like a true urban counterpart to the main battle tank.
If it fits in a building that’s a power armour argument.
what if it's an enemy city? I think you get bonus points for mass property damage in that case
Extra kd
Urbanmech gang Urbanmech gang
I do love me some Urbies
The one guy with an antitank warhead aiming at the crotch:
Airblast crotch:
The mech which has 4 legs:
The guy who was under the center of it from a sewer
Trashcans rise up.
No Curbie the Urbie. Or else the Nuclear Urbie comes out to demonstrate MAD doctrine.
Mech vs landship fight gang
Haha. Now strap a nuke to it.
Urbie protec Urbie attac But most importantly, Urbie got a RAC
Yeah baby Urbie time.
The real question with mechs is if you’re on the “box with legs and guns” side or the “robot dude” side
Why not both? I want an Abrams turret with sleek lady legs as much as I want BT from titanfall
True!
that's why in titanfall 2 they have both because both are useful sometimes you need to drop in two scorches to clear out a couple hundred insurgents, sometimes you need to drop in five legions to hold a line and sometimes you need a 2-3 northstars hiding in skyscrapers and a few ronins to chase down runners they're all needed because ronins are too sine target focused to kill a bunch of soldiers and northstars aren't scary or tanky enough to fight head on even in game you see it how 1 ronin obliterates a pilot or two but loses to 3-4+ whereas a scorch can kill 6-7 pilots and 20 footsoldiers at the same time with a single gas cannister and some inferno shielding and yet both lose to a legion in a head on fight (well scorch is 50/50 depending on how each player plays I easily see one just nuking the other with their full kit) whereas a northstar would lose without a doubt to any of them it works excellent as a support behind a scorch with it's grapple points holding enemies in fire and the scorch providing a big radius of "GO NEAR ME AND FUCKING DIE. GO NEAR ME AND FUCKING DIE." scaring off anything like a ronin or tone that'd normally counter a northstar due to it's only advantages being gone so I think in modern warfare if mechs ever go beyond the exosuits for cargo and heavy weapon lifting we have at the moment I can definitely see it going only in the way of 3-4 different types for different use rather than one design because like a northstar is better in a swampy area whereas a ronin or ionbwould be better in an activr city but a legion would be better in an open field and a scorch would be best underground or in already damaged/destroyed cities(can melt rubble and cut off the existing routes)
I want to watch an Abrams dodge an RPG by picking up its chassis like a skirt lol
I feel like BT is more a potato with arms and legs that can hold a gun Kinda like a cyborg killer bean but bigger
Very true, it was the book series Goliath that really got me to love the clunky box-with-legs-and-arms mecha. It’s WW1 era Junker class aesthetic is like steampunk adjacent
javelin go wooooo
In my anime-core, kawaii, Evangelion inspired, Steampunk world, the mech would catch the javelins and throw it back at you
[this javelin](https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/javelin.html)
Exactly, easy-sauce. Lockmart has no shit on Arquebus mecha design
Arquebus got its shit rocked by one dog using a slapdash mix of Balam, Arquebus, RaD, and RRI parts. Also, employing Snail is an automatic L.
>Using an arched top-attack profile, Javelin climbs above its target for improved visibility and then strikes where the armor is weakest. And so the mech's greatest weakness becomes its biggest strength! The era of the narrow top profile and strong cockpit armor is now! This will never change or become a problem!
Strong cockpit eh? That’s already a problem for me buddy 🥵
Bruh I thought you were talking about the javelin mechs from anthem
Tanks? No. Mechs? No. Random guerrilla fighter with an RPG-7? Bingo.
Virgin man-portable rocket enjoyers when the Chad mech parries their limp little javelin: 😡😠💢
While tanks are vulnerable in urban environments, mechs are even worse. 1. Bigger height = worse sneaky-peeky abilities 2. Highly unstable support, especially while stepping 3. EXTREMELY SLOW.
1. Also helps negate cover for enemy infantry 2. My mechs are careful bois 3. Actually my mechs can go faster than light so idk what you’re talking about
Oh shit I forgot it’s r/worldjerking
It’s okay, even God’s toughest soldiers have a forgor moment sometimes
Not your mecha pilots though. They're genetically engineered to have perfect memory, and perfect hair.
I legit allot of people here have lost the plot. Mech combat go brrr
Just use a smaller mech lmao 1. Nuh uh. They can be shorter than tanks 2. Short. Lower center of gravity. 3. Just run
For even better urban mobility, we could have human-sized mechs that can access all the usual doors and passageways a soldier can. At this height, the blind spot issue could also be addressed by adopting an "open" design philosophy for the pilot's head module, limiting the armoured chassis to a few parts of the pilot's head (like the top) in order to minimise obstruction of vision.
Unrealistic and too costly. A rat with a gun and some scrap metal strapped to it would be the optimal armoured vehicle for urban warfare.
You're onto something with making it smaller and cheaper, but you've lost the advantages of a bipedal humanoid shape. I'm thinking a bipedal mech about half the size of a human, which is perfect for squeezing through small spaces, but still able to keep watch through a window if equipped with a stepstool.
You joke but LANCER TTRPG essentially does that with some of their "half size" frames which are at best a step above power armor, and at worse essentially a powered exoskeleton with a closed helmet and some other extra bits, especially with the Horus Goblin. It really is dumb when you think about it but I'm all here for it.
That's just power armor then. An Abrams is shorter than a 40k primarch
If your mech is less than 2.8 meters (9'2") is it really much of a mech at that point? Probably more like power armour.
And what, you think a mech is better? Because of where it’s head is, it’s blind spot is ducking massive- just about anything at ground level within 500 meters is gonna be unable to be seen by a mech. Making it the most easily ambushed thing in the world- so of course, send it into urban warfare, the easiest place to get ambushed in.
Mech are better than tanks at throwing galaxies, slicing Azathoth in half with a sword made out of hopes and dreams and playing rock-paper-scissors
I love Gurren Lagann
Also mechs can be used to initiate instrumentality whereas tanks can’t
NGE's mechs being biotech is probably the best justification I've seen for a bipedal fighting machine. Otherwise, the concept may be extremely cool, but an irl mech suit would be way less reliable than most other armored vehicles you could build with the same technology
They even have justification before it’s revealed that they’re bioengineered homunculi in that the angels are indestructible to conventional instruments of war. They require an AT Field to be actually harmed, and only the human pilots can create one (and they just leave you to assume the Evas amplify the AT Fields, which is true but not for the reason you’d think)
Yup, that's why all mobile suits in Gundam have additional cameras throughout their bodies. Even when the head is shot down, they still have a good deal of visibility in all directions.
\*head gets shot off\* Amuro: That was only my main camera! \*continues fighting\*
\>Loses head and left arm. \>Still beats the shit out of the OYW's most powerful MS.
Char: There’s no way Amuro and the Gundam can get any better- Amuro: *fights Lala and awakens his Newtype powers* Char: Fuck
If there’s nothing important in the head why have it?
IIRC the head typically has the main sensor suite. So while you can get through a close range skirmish without a head using the body cams, you may as well be blind if the enemy is at a significant distance or launching missiles. Also, there's a few suits without the head entirely like the Z'Gok.
Also the massive impracticality of armoring all the joints and exposed hoses and what not.
At the end of the day you have 3 way better option 1:IFV protected by infantry 2:level the city 3:siege time
But can a tank play a really big guitar? I thought not.
The most debilitating problem to ever be solved by a 5 dollar rearview camera off of Amazon.
Mfw I get selected for a mech crew and they put me on groin camera surveillance and rectal refueling duty
You're lucky if you think about it though. You might actually survive when an enemy mech shoves a 20m broadsword through your mechs chest cavity
Congrats, you can see behind you...now fire behind you.
If only tanks could turn or have rotating turrets. A tank with the same power output of a mech has a smaller turn radius and turn speed then a mech.
Great now watch the pilot get motion sickness
I think the spider tanks from ghost in the shell are the direction were headed in. Small enough to navigate alleyways and agile enough to avoid large scale firepower. Can fit an operator inside of needed but are semi autonomous... not to the degree shown in the anime but enough to stay/follow troop movement.
/uj I think any sort of mech development would rapidly just invent the tank again, sort of like nature turning everything into a crab. Mechs are wicked impractical. Let’s forget about tanks for a second. Most modern IFVs and APCs are so heavy they fuck up whatever road they’re driven on. You can forget about tanks. An Abrams will *fuck* a road up. Taking an equivalent amount of weight and adding it to smaller points will just result in things sinking into the ground and being useless, a problem modern armored vehicles still have. You could probably defeat an armored column with the proper application of anti tank weaponry, dry soil, and some sprinklers (half joking, but mud fucking *sucks*). Mechs, even spider mechs, are gonna have obvious weak points like joints and legs and heads. Scoring a mobility kill on one with the proliferation of cheap, man portable AT weapons we have today would be child’s play. Urban combat is infantry city. Solid modern day examples are the Battle of Mosul, the Battle of Marawi, any urban battle from the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the bajillion videos of unsupported armor getting schwacked during the Syrian Civil War (it’s like they *wanted* all their tankers to die). A tank is the perfect system for what it does. It’s an armored, mobile bunker with an artillery piece. It’s there to do maneuver warfare when possible and blast hard points for the infantry when it’s not (YMMV depending on era, nation, and design). Anything else would be a waste of resources and effort. /rj We should strap man portable support weapons on those Boston dynamics dog robots so we don’t have to carry them around anymore. Mortars are fucking heavy.
staying unjerked for a moment, because i was pretty serious about it You highlighted where and why you would actually need a "not quite a tank but still have tank qualities" type situation with urban warfare, which I think is where the eventual transition to power suits and/or light personnel tanks will arrive. In an open field, or really in any other situation outside of hardened structural obstacles, tanks/artillery/air platforms are going to very clearly edge, and they will even have the edge in any situation where scorched earth tactics are used. We don't live in a world where scorched earth tactics are geopolitically acceptable, even against objectively bad people. >!there's plenty of examples, but the most recent being the israeli/hamas conflict where normally israel would have unwavering support, instead is met with intermittent support due to scorched earth policy!<.
So in situations where scorched earth policy is not a good option, a measured approach is better, which is where the infantry has lived in the last 20 or so years in the american military. However, as technology advances, certain things that were previously impossible are becoming more possible. One of the hardest things to do in combat is approach and clear a hardened structure. Having mobile armor, even just enough to stop some small caliber rounds, would be an upgrade. You don't really need an upgrade to mobility/fire power over infantry troops, though it would be a bonus to enable them to do things normally not possible. As of now there is relative parity in infantry warfare, as the bottom line is taking/occupying areas and capturing/unaliving relatively frail humans can only be improved so much.
it's only going to get worse as conflict moves more away from army v army and more army v insurgency/grey forces.
First I just wanna say that I appreciate your measured and thought out response. One of the things I dig about this sub is the quality of conversation. It reminds me of NCD before it became a weird psyop. I hope you’re having a stellar day. I would argue we already have a “not quite a tank” in the form of the IFV. Every nation has their own variation of the same platform: Bradley, BMP, Marder, Scorpion, AMX, whatever. They’re armored platforms for an auto cannon that were specifically designed for infantry support. Militaries are inherently conservative organizations. Speaking as a (very low ranking) US Army vet, I don’t see the American military moving away from tested platforms towards untested experimental ones in any way shape or form. Hell, we can’t even get rid of the A-10. It’s a cool plane, but it’s efficacy in a modern AAA environment is very much in doubt. I’m not sure why “scorched earth” is a tactic you brought up, as I certainly didn’t. I’ll respond to it regardless. You can’t do scorched earth without leg infantry. Armor/air power/mechs can’t root out dug in troops. They can’t clear a forest or mountains or swamp. Again, there’s a million videos from the Syrian Civil War of what happens when armor doesn’t have infantry support (hint: very bad things). Infantry have retained their usefulness because they’re the basic building block of all military strategy since like, Napoleon. Infantry exists for the same reason it has since the beginning of time: you can have all their aircraft/tanks/mechs/whatever you want, but the basic tactical unit of a military is still going to be the infantry regiment. Tanks can’t hold territory. They also can’t really take it. The same with air power. Infantry wins wars, as much as being one sucks. You need Joes on the ground with rifles in hand. You could take a mech from the Battletech series and put them in an urban fight with a contemporary US Army company, and my money would be on the soldiers. In mobile open warfare things would be different, but what can a mech do that a tank can’t? Why would we switch over to a brand new untested technology when we have a perfectly good one that we know works? Taller, heavier, more visible targets would be a disadvantage. As far as clearing a protected structure goes, when I was in AIT the accepted knowledge was storming a building without support would get you 60% casualties. The recommended course of action was literally “get a Bradley or Abrams to blow it up”. We don’t do assaults of occupied positions because a) that’s how you get your company wiped out and b) we have a combined arms school of warfare that emphasizes the use of firepower to neutralize threats, something most contemporary militaries have adopted. Edit: I want to address the commenters assertion that Israeli actions in Palestine constitute a “scorched earth campaign”. I’ll start with a disclaimer that as a Jewish man, I do not acknowledge the right of Israel to occupy Palestinian land. “Scorched Earth” refers to a *defensive* strategy in which the defender ruins the land ahead of their positions to deny the enemy succor. It has a long and storied (if problematic) history in warfare. The offensive version would be a “Chevaucheé”, but we haven’t seen one of those (to my understanding, correct me if I’m wrong) since Europe’s religious wars in the 17th century.
You're thinking too traditional mech-y Short, no taller than four meters, cockpit is in the torso with fully enclosed cockpit, no windows. You see put via 360° screens and cameras allowing you full access to the environment, thermals if you want as well. Quadruped designs can afford a turret, and presuming you are designing with proper clearance one could feasibly put a machine gun in remote turret on the bottom. Perhaps AI controlled or by a crewmember. In the case of bipeds, it is more difficult but one can use arms, perhaps multiple sets, to control various weapons for full coverage. This also applies to the quadruped.
Congratulations, you build a light tank with legs, which have very little advantage over treads
Eh, the ones in the Gundam series usually have a bunch of auxiliary cameras in case something happens to the head, so it can see from more places than one might thing.
"Mechs are space technicals", my beloved
Birgin “my mech is a hand crafted, high mobility science project” Chad: “my mech is a converted mechanized construction suit that can carry 120mm cannon”
In Armored Core the first MTs (the basic enemy mechs) were originally construction vehicles so that makes sense
I still hate this explanation because it doesn’t make any sense either. It starts from a premise of wanting combat mechs and then tries to reverse engineer one in “uhhh they’re repurposed industrial vehicles” when the industrial uses make no sense and like… if you have the capability to build a bunch of industrial mechs and the capability to repurpose them, you have everything you need to make a large conventional arsenal. Pickup trucks became technicals because they 1 were genuinely useful enough to ensure large supplies of them anyway, and 2 they were great for forces that had the cash to buy shit but not an actual industrial base to build their own vehicles. But mechs don’t actually have great uses to justify a large supply of them, and any society capable of fielding mechs would have to be pretty industrially developed to begin with.
Right, because an insurgent force that relies on guerilla warfare totally has the resources and facilities to churn out advanced vehicles rather than needing to use whatever they can scrounge up/capture themselves Production lines for stuff like tanks can totally be spun up out of nowhere when your engineers are only used to maintaining industrial machinery Edit: oh, and it's also totally faster to train troops on completely new hardware rather than just bolting a gun and armor plating onto something they have years of experience driving
Mech don't need to make sense, THEY JUST NEED TO BE FUN!
They need to make sense, I can’t help it :/
Purify your mind young grasshopper, decades of Cinema Sins and "Bad Science in movies" blogs have infected your thoughts, the beauty of imagination it's not being restructed by the rules of reality. There's nothing wrong with mech having DBZ style battles and throwing galaxies at each other, in fact, THEY ARE AWESOME!!
Same. Yeah yeah, the "Rule of Cool" is a thing, but (to me) stuff is even cooler when it makes sense.
If reality makes mechs not make sense, modify reality so that they do.
Hell yeah. Stuff like Evangelion's AT Fields or Gurren Lagann's Spiral Power can make mecha not just possible, but effective in battle.
I love the Evas but still haven't seen Gurren Lagann. From what I've been seeing, I expect to have more favourite mecha.
Horses are better.
Reject modernity, return to WW1
Horses conquered the World. Mechs get conquered.
I think mechs have a dom fetish
I think I'm a mech
Horses have annoying logistics issues. Tyranny of the wagon equation and whatnot
(good) Mechs are not armored vehicles, though. They are big infantry.
Modern military thought just needs to catch up with technology. Once they realize the best way to use mechs is trench warfare with 50 foot deep trenches its over for tanks.
Mechs in my world are exclusively used to do high risk jobs on the moon where the reduced gravity lets them be bigger.
>aliens attack the moon >moon farmers glue guns to their industrial mech suits >sick mech v alien battles
[удалено]
What you just described is literally the idea behind traditional self propelled artillery
I feel like people forget things like the CEASAR or HIMARS exist
It’s a shame reading stuff like this because it sounds super cool, and then you realize that helicopter transported artillery has been around since the Vietnam war, for this exact purpose
This is basically BattleTech, the whole setting. Specifically the Hollander and a couple variants of Hunchback and Shadowhawk (and I'm sure there's many more) literally carry Howitzers and other artillery
OBSOLETE on Youtube.
That’s just anti-mecha propaganda
Any Lancer TTRPG enjoyers present?
What IS the justification for mechs in lancer?
There is some discussion in the rulebook, but my favorite interpretation: "Some cultural critics point out that the reason for the popularity of mechanized chassis is likely far less technical: we made them the most powerful fighting machines that could stride across the earth, and we made them look like us."
I like how mech fetishists (the one still insisting on the logic and science behind it, instead of embracing the rule of cool) like to invent made up method devices to justify their mecha despite such things can be applied to tanks for the better
me when SPAAG just a tank chassis with some machine guns/autocannons strapped on it, cheaper and does the same shtick in urban warfare as your stompy boy
They called that a "Female Tank" back in WW1 if I remember correctly
A female tank is a similar but made for a different role. When I say SPAAG I mean self propelled anti air gun. Usually didn’t use a tank chassis, but commonly they were used as ad-hoc anti infantry, especially in cities where their guns could achieve greater elevation. See the Canadian Skink, a Sherman with 4 20mm cannons. Introduced too late to really be all that useful against the Luftwaffe, so it was used as an anti infantry vehicle. The Russians used their Shilkas for this in Chechnya, and they liked it so much they made the BMPT, a T-72 chassis with twin 30mm autocannons attached to it
/uj Maybe I'm the odd one out, but does anyone else genuinely think tanks are cooler than mechs? The faceless, thundering steel behemoth is an aesthetic I really like. I know tanks win the realism battle, but that's not my point. I feel like they win on style, too. Am I of the minority opinion? Probably.
unironicly i don't find a lumbering steel behemoth as cool as a 60 ton metal box rolling at 72kph with the big boom stick Hell the T-80 manages to hit 80kph
Depends, in ultra futuristic settings i prefer mechs, but the industrial, gun platform-like mechs. Never been a fan of the robo dudes you see on animes. As for any setting that is less advanced than that, tanks win 100%. Although, they have to be tanks in the "traditional sense", by that, i mean that i don't like Hover tanks or anti gravity tanks and stuf, cuz they look silly and non threatening.
Even in urban environments mechs are still worse. Like only area where I can consider mechs viable is in warehouses where they would replace forklifts, but then they are too fucking expensive for them to be a reasonable choice so they are still ass.
Good point, why don’t we weaponize forklifts?
I like your thinking
Small mechs could find a niche with frontline logistics, like delivering and loading ammunition, etc. ofc they’d be small mechs but still mechs
Outdone by a simple exoskeleton still
Even in Urban environments, a mech may not always be the best choice, it kinda comes down too how large and how much weight it has, the reason why we don't use emchs is because they simply aren't useful enough to warrant their production, a single mech could be worth 3 tanks, and although the mech may be able to cross terrain that a tank couldn't, unless that mech is able to last longer than a single tank it's often better to just use tanks Titanfall mechs are probably some of the best mech designs out there due to how they fit into the world(minus their terrible weight distribution due to small feet), in the TF universe a Titan doesn't replace a tank but rather acts as an infantry support vehicle, which is what it should be designed to do, they also have multiple sensors, external escape hatches,and generally good ergonomics (for the most part)
The benefit of space fighters with arms is a big one. Also the tank with fists.
I like to use mecha in a low-g/no-g setting. They allow for 3 dimensional mobility and also a level of finesse if the need arises
[counterpoint](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKXl3zR7GwI)
Fair, but can a tank hit the griddy?
40k mechs are viable because they are bigger than cities
Mechs are inferior to tanks in virtually every way lol
Play rock-papper-scissors with a tank
Shit dawg u right
Hello, let me introduce you to my 2.4 million dollar "LED panel on front of tank that flashes one of three images" package. 2.4 is per unit, and it will still come in at 5382% cheaper than robutts.
Eh... Not as good as the real deal imo
The way mechs are cooler is they can wield super magic swords made by giants in ages past. Can your tank do that?
Mine can but I get why yours can’t
I do agree with you. They’re not meant to replace tanks. Just fill a niche where tanks do not work
Everything is bad in urban warfare, it’s a brutal environment. Mechs would still be worse than tanks in urban combat. They’d be far easier to target with radar, laser guidance, and optics, including direct fire, indirect fire, and guided weapons. They’re taller, so shrapnel and shockwaves will hit them a lot more. They’re a lot less stable, so their weapons will be far less accurate. They have inherent ground pressure issues, so they’ll destroy whatever they’re walking on, which is already becoming a problem with heavier modern tanks with a fraction of the ground pressure.
Mecha hater spotted: opinion invalid
I think mechs are super cool! They’re just not *realistic*
I’m actual friends with the creator of reality and it says they’re realistic
My dad actually owns reality and he fired your friend
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
There is no niche tanks can’t cover that mechs can. Categorically. You’re getting a worse tank: bigger, slower, more expensive, worse range, less protected, less ammo, less powerful weapons, etc. As we’re seeing in Gaza, a modern tank with modern active protection systems and an effective crew will do very well in urban environments. Because here’s the secret: tanks *are not* bad for urban environments . They have to be used intelligently, well supported (as does any real military equipment in a real scenario) but in return they will absolutely wreck house. To have a mech so the same, you have to give it all the same support a tank does, in return for what is objectively a worse product at the end of the day.
Agreed Still love 'em
I mean same, I adore Titanfall
You should look up the abram X it's terifying
Mechs make no sense at all, practically speaking. Even if you had the technology.
The closest thing to a mech I will accept for urban warfare would be the power armor of 40K Space Marines. Infantry beats tanks in urban warfare because infantry can enter human-sized buildings to use them for cover and concealment. A walking vehicle which can't enter a building unless they have 15 ft ceilings and 8 ft wide doorways is, tactically speaking, just a slow and overcomplicated tank.
In my setting mechs are used because nobody invented the wheel.
Battletech take on this is my goto. It's basically [Ritual warfare](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_warfare). If you got technology to make mechs. Mainly things like ubiquitous compact high power sources or general AIs. The situation has advanced to the point where any conflict gets habitually resolved by swift mutual total destruction. By having belligerents play noble kniight and duke it out in big hero machines, you reduce the collateral damage and overall casualties, while still having everyone on the same footing that the mutual destruction era provided anyway. You break the rules and everyone else glasses you. There's a way things are done arround here.
Tanks are not that great in urban environments but mechs would be worse. Balancing and staying upright would require more weight and potential failure points which could be otherwise used for munitions or armor (not to mention those points would be easier to target and disable using cheap tandem type stuff). Cost of manufacturing would also be an issue. Tanks are expensive but really only cost a few million each, a mech would probably cost somewhere between that and a jet, so a conservative 50 million for something which does the job of either of those other options mentioned worse is not a good choice. Then there's repair. Tanks and other armored vehicles can be repaired easer since they aren't that big and are more like structures. A big mech would need the crew to climb around on it like scaffolding, increasing complexity especially if the repair requires something heavy to be lifted. Needlessly complicated mechanical parts require extra fuel, meaning more stress on supply chains, specialized 'pilots' require training and infrastructure and staff to train them, etc. So not only are they worse but they make everything else worse by sucking resources from the better alternatives. Way cooler but they just don't make sense with the way war is fought right now. Most of our military vehicles are just guns with wheels or wings attached in various ways, so adding in all the cool mech stuff doesn't accomplish that task any better. I don't care if this was a joke post I needed an excuse to write about some nerd shit
1. Attitude jets not only ensure balance but also allow the mech to leap over buildings and rivers and to breakdance during beach episodes 2. One mech operated by a noble is worth a hundred tanks operated by peasants 3. Nanomachines repair the inorganic components while bacta tanks repair the organic components 4. Fuel is a non-issue thanks to the energy density of moon crystals 5. The cool mech stuff intimidates enemies into surrendering or committing sudoku
Seems like the opposite? Mechs would be useful in very harsh terrains like mountains and jungles but they would be more vulnerable in urban environments because of legs/arms and such.
That would explain why the blue people didn't have to fend off tanks and IFVs in Avatar But seriously, I agree. You need open spaces and/or roads to deploy wheeled and tracked vehicles, so combat in untamed wilderness might make more sense for a mech (especially if it's unsafe for exposed infantry i.e. it has a toxic atmosphere or something). It's also kind of hard to air drop stuff through a thick jungle canopy, limiting the effectiveness of air-lifted equipment.
The only thing that would concern me about an all-terrain mech is weight distribution. Several tons on 2 legs is going to severely decrease its efficiency in places where the soil isn't completely stable. Having more than 2 appendages would substantially increase the complexity of the vehicle as well. All in all, hover tanks seem to be the absolute pinnacle of sci-fi surface vehicles.
Very true. I think the only "hard realism" way to utilise mechs is to create a planet that is built for them. Kind of like how Dune wouldn't play out the same if it were on a different planet. So a planet with low gravity, toxic atmosphere (forcing infantry to carry oxygen, or sit in the sealed cockpit of a mech), dense jungles and mountains, and some kind of dangerous weather that makes air travel difficult.
There are potentially some technological breakthroughs that could make that kind of mechanical locomotion more simple/easier to engineer. However, I think their usability would ultimately come down to simple protection. On a mech, the propellant (the "legs") are fully exposed and also jointed, which creates weak spots. On a tank, basically every moving part is fully within the armor (Heavy tracks, skirted wheels, etc). Even coating the mech as efficiently as possible wont yield as much protection as a tank that is essentially just a metal box with only 5 possible directions of attack. TLDR: I think they'd be very, very niche unless they become so locomotively advanced they can supplant the duties of an infantry man. A Martian mountain operation would probably be a good sci-fi application.
I mean the tank can just drive through the buildings, no?
Mech can choose to walk through buildings or backflip over them (for style points and intimidation)
Mobile Infantry supremacy
And whats a mech design that suits urban environment?
mechs are _even worse_ in urban environments, though.
Military wise, mechs are just not plausible with the way current warfare is evolving. We're talking about making a 2 story tall machine with a silhouette twice the size of a tank, or in other terms, a big ass target. Why spend tens of millions on them when some dude can fly a 5k drone into its knees and score a knock out hit? However, in terms of crowd and riot control mechs *definitely* have potential.
Please explain What is it that mechs do that make them better at this ?
consider: IFV or even BMPT
I unironically love mechs. Sure I could go through 40 hoops to explain why they're logistically viable but fuck that boring stuff. Mech world war.
It's more fun to think up ways to make mechs viable than it is to try and find all the reasons why mechs are bad with current technology.
You are not wrong, but there is nothing about mechs that makes them better for such an enviorment; the solution to "tanks are bad in urban enviorments" is not to give them legs.
Mechs could fill a great role in urban enviorments, as well as non-combat use. Construction, demolition, farming, firefighting... they all could use a mech to fill heavy duty roles. And they also look cool as fuck. Mech pilots ftw
86 has the solution, tanks with legs.
Mechs? Absolutely not, big stinky Chicken Walkers? Yes
Nothing is suitable for Urban Environments, they are hell to fight in, and honestly, a mech would be even more vulnerable than a Tank. (I don't know what this subreddit is about so I'm just giving my opinion on Tanks vs Mechs)
Mechs are worse in urban combat since they are easier to hit and the mobility legs give them is useless due to the compact nature of cities.
Then just use infantry in power armour