How viable are battlemechs as weapons of war?Does having legs make them too vulnerable?
>>64905146Bottom-anon, go back to your containment thread.
>>64905146When you say Battlemechs, do you mean Mechs from a specific franchise that has special technology or are asking about if Mechs would be suitable with current technology?
>>64905146Fuck off to >>>/m/
>>64905162Doesn’t matter, the answer is still no.
>>64905185cope seethe you lost tankfag
>>64905146How viable is it to make the same pointless thread forever?
>>64905146WHERE ARE MY FUSION ENGINES, GENERAL MOTORS? IT'S 2026, YOU ARE 5 YEARS LATE ALREADY
Would a normal standard infantryman qualify as mech because of two legs?
>>64906613Furrys count as quads
>>64906619How do you know about my browser history?
>>64906656Remember where you are!
>>64905146Short answer, no. Long answer is that any weapon or armor you can put on a mech can also be put on a tank. Since a tank is far more simple in concept a mech will never out-tank a tank. That being said, Excavators are very mech-like.
>>64905146Get a life you fucking loser.
>>64905146Mech is absolutely viable on a extraterrestrial environment. regolith is going to fuck up any moving mechanism, but, unlike wheel or track, you can cover the legs of a mech to protect them from regolith
>>64906996A mech's arms and hands would definitely be viable in hostile environments. You'd still get the fine manipulation of hands while not being totally screwed if something punctures said hands.
gb2 /btg/ fgt
>>64907104He's probably been chased out of /btg/.And yes, I am aware of how grim it sounds.
>>64906996>>64907076No.
>>64907104/btg/ hereWe don't want him!
>>64906796>mech will never out-tank a tank.Doesn't have to, mechs can fill other roles than that of tanks.You're argument is akin to saying helicopters are unviable as weapons because any weapon or armor you can put on a helicopter can also be put on a tank and because a tank is far more simple in concept, a helicopter will never out-tank a tank. Of course this argument is , bad because helicopters have a different role than that of a tank. Replace helicopter with IFV or SPG and the reasoning is the same.
>>64908134This would have more relevancy if you show a mech not trying to be a tank. This is basically my biggest gripe about Battletech.
>>64908160Almost no light mech is trying to be a tank, and the few that are are almost all quite bad at it and basically only good as budget options. A lot of mechs are also just platforms for indirect missile fire, and a few are true artillery units.
Engineer here. If I had to design a mech I would look at Chromehounds' designs, but that's pushing it already: any other implementation is just pants on head retarded. If engines more energy and power dense than current combustion engines (turbine included) were available I'd just make a regular tank, but smaller, lighter, and with more space for the crew and other systems. The logistic gains in making a SEPv3 at half the weight would win any war just by themselves.
Mechs in battletech was possible only because of tremendous technological advancements of Terran Hegemony made it possible and Ares Conventions made it viable, before that people nuked each other and flattened each other with tanks just fine. After that its just the golden age combined with relative peace and weaponized graft of Star League which allowed all the crazy development and prototyping. Just look at LAMs.
>>64908134Here’s the problem.None of you mechfuckers can come up with a role that a Mech would be able to accomplish that cannot already be done with existing equipment without having to dump trillions of R&D, or otherwise without being such a narrow niche that it’s not worth spending said trillions of dollars on.
>>64908561>None of you mechfuckers can come up with a role that a Mech would be able to accomplish that cannot already be done with existing equipmentHere's one, heavy fire support on terrain too rough for tracks and the airspace too contested for helicopters or planes. inb4 drones, how many drones do you think a infantry man can carry vs a vehicle because I'll bet a vehicle (such as a mech) can carry a lot more.> without having to dump trillions of R&DNew weapons programs are expensive and even then it's rare for them to be trillions of dollars expensive. There's a reason for why the F35 is infamous for having a 2 trillion dollar program cost and its not because R&D costs for new weapons regularly cost trillions of dollars.>or otherwise without being such a narrow niche that it’s not worth spending said trillions of dollars on.What do you consider too narrow a niche, or is this just a fall back argument just in case someone can answer the first part of your question?
>>64909432> heavy fire support on terrain too rough for tracks and the airspace too contested for helicopters or planeArtillery. But also things like the Wiesel or Ontos.
>>64905146>ViableIt's kind of two questions>If you have Battletech/mechwarrior mechs already and they function as they do in setting, you can maintain them etc, would they be effective at winning battles and achieving objectives against either conventional forces or other battlemechsTo which the answer is "Yes if they're as fast as they are in the games rather than the numbers on the stat sheets in the tabletop".Even relatively small mechs can withstand a substantial number of direct hits from modern tank guns and artillery. Depending on the writer, modern 120mm guns are L rifles, M rifles, or H rifles, and even H Rifles are just not relevant weapons to mech combat.the other question is >is it plausible to build Battletech mechs, and are they an ideal use of the technology used to build themto which the answer is probably no.
>>64907400yesmech is unironically the future of extraterrestrial warfare
>>64909497This anon knows. Rule of cool counts more in warfare than you guys know. Once we get out of the current paradigm we're going to see some truly wild stuff on the battlefield.
>>64905146Battlemechs exist in a setting that, in some ways, is more primitive than what we have today in terms of technology.
>>64906796Front Mission's idea was that they basically didn't replace tanks or weren't even preferable outside of specific niches like terrain tanks had issue is. Not sure it's worth the cost for those niches though.
The existence of TOW missiles IRL basically completely invalidates mechs in Battletech desu.
>>64905146Mechs are just worse helicopters.
>>64909493Battletech has relatively stagnant or grounded technology everywhere except stuff like neurohelms and myomer, the exact things you need to make a battlemech viable. It works decently within its own setting but no universe not developed specifically to make mechs viable is going to develop 'makes mechs work' tech before falling to a dark age.Arguably mechs are one of the best uses of myomer and neurohelms it's just that any society that can develop those should be able to develop different, more effective technologies.
>>64909432>heavy fire support on terrain too rough for tracksHelicopters>and the airspace too contested for helicoptersSo the helicopter hovers low to the ground.
>>64905146Are we talking frontline fighters or for logistics and the engineer corps?As frontline they may have some utility in regions that tanks are bad in.But as an engineering vehicle with the versatility that hands provide at scale, and any equipped weapons are more for holdout situations, you got something useful. Have some sorta arm movement trackers that translate pilot movement to the mech arms, and you'll have something pretty intuitive to the human mind.A lot of people point to ground pressure and that making them unviable in mud, but less of a concern than you think. It's an issue for wheeled and tracked vehicles because if they sink far enough, the belly is sitting on the mud and taking traction away from the wheels and tracks, as well as the issues of spinning out. Mechs would be more in a human walking issue, which has more to do with depth and viscosity of the mud. That ain't nothing but can easily mean that mud that can stop one doesn't neccessarily stop the other and vice versa.
>>64912760Spoken like someone who doesn't know anything about battletech
>>64913020No I know all about Battletech. Their main excuse for why the mechs don't just get taken out by long-range missiles is because of ECM, which can only be countered by TAG or by shorter range LRM missiles, but TAG gives away your location when using it and LRM isn't that long-ranged by comparison. However, TOW missiles bypass all of that since it keeps a direct connection to the controller of the missile that can't be intercepted by ECM.
>>64913102Mech armor is ablative. Damage is about how much mass you can put into the target, not whether you can penetrate. So you can fire a TOW, hell, fire a dozen. You've chipped off a piece of torso armor and now have a line and an energy signature leading back to your firing position.
>>64913169You can make TOW missiles bigger. There's a reason Arrow IV missiles exist in the setting. Big missile do big damage.
>>64913197Technically, Arrow IV isn’t really a TOW equivalent. It’s more of a guided rocket artillery systems.The TOW equivalent (minus guidance) would be a Thunderbolt missile.
>>64913229TOW just describes a method of guiding the missile after launching it. It can be any size, and mounted on any vehicle.
>>64905146Having something that can move material like construction equipment while also being heavily armed isn't that bad of an idea, imo. As we move towards infantry and small platoons again something that can be in weird places and manipulate things with big strong arms might have a place. But I don't know if it'll be worth it or not.
>>64905146Battlemechs are the special operations of the armor world. Dropped behind enemy lines to cause chaos. Used in hit and run attacks. EtcThey're larger pieces of an army that has tanks, planes, missiles, and space ships with big lasers.If you look at them from that perspective, then they'd be pretty useful. At any time a drop ship could plop down in your rear and then dispense a bunch of super mobile tanks that go around obliterating your supply lines.
>>64913420That's just a stealth plane
>>64905146A small Avatar type mech might be useful.
>>64914879
>>64914882
>>64905146>cgl Maurader FUCKING DISGUSTING
>>64913169Except that TOW's are Tandam Charged (roll critical hits) and are absolutely fuckhuge compared even SRM's? >muh exploding metal All they did with it was make missiles SMALLER. Not better, but SMALLER. A TOW would shit all over BT missiles because they wanted to cram in as many as possible because their targeting systems are legitimately bad, like 1960's but somehow worse bad.
>>64905146>this fucking thread AGAINKill yourself, retard.
>>64914928I don't see you complaining in the slav civil war threads. Which is literally the same shit 4 years now.
>>64915964>slav civil warWay to out yourself immediately, zigger. I hope your supervisor notices this and you get fired.Also: kill yourself, retard.
>>64915977There you have it, folks.Dude is pissed off that his shill thread #58623 got bumped off the catalog by a thread about mechs.
>>64914927Yeah like, an Arrow IV will absolutely fuck up a mech, hell it one-shots light and medium mechs typically IIRC
>>64916698load it with a davy crockett and it'll one tap assaults too
>>64916724And even if you need more than one, Arrow IV’s are super cheap, for the cost of one light mech you can get like a dozen Arrow IV’s and that’s for a missile that will usually one-shot them.
>>64915977>people having fun on a kiribati shirt folding enthusiast imageboard? not on my watch!
>>64914928Bumping thread
>>64919316>quad AC2 Rifleman Ballistic weapons in Battletech are so fucked over it's not funny. Fun fact, I did a experiment with Rifles, and when you remove the retarded -3 malus on their damage they actually become useful. Then I extended that logic to the rest of the ballistic weapons tree, and suddenly everything just made sense.>AC2 Becomes a AC5, and now becomes a sensible weapon in general. Mechs and vehicles using them become actually dangerous, a Blackjack or Mauler becomes really fucking good at their tonnage brackets.>AC5With damage equaling a large laser and nearing a PPC the AC8 being so widespread and being near the caliber of a Heavy Rifle while carrying more ammo and running cooler justifies it's existence and it's use in lore. A Marauder's 120mm GM Whirlwind autocannon doing 8 damage, so alternating 2-1-2 PPC's while firing the autocannon is actually viable. >AC10Doing 13 damage is fucking huge, as it becomes the first introtech weapon to be able to headcap (kill a mech on a headshot) and automatically triggering a critical roll on normal hits due to BAR10 armor. The weight, ammo, and range bracket mesh beautifully with this damage.
>>64905155It's probably not him. There aren't enough random words in all-caps.
>>64919372>and when you remove the retarded -3 malus on their damage they actually become useful.Yeah that's why the damage penalty is there, retard. They're not supposed to be useful. If they're useful that defeats the entire point of their in setting existence.
>>64919435>completely ignores how autocannons are still better How are you this fucking stupid? The fact you ignored the range, ammunition superiority and ammunition type advantage combined with the heat generation shows that you've never played a fucking game in your life. A Heavy Rifle is a 9 damage weapon with a ammunition count at 9 per ton. Meanwhile the AC5 has 20 per ton, generates 1 heat per shot while the Heavy Rifle generates 4. The Autocannon 5 has a damage potential of 100 points of damage per ton while the Heavy Rifle has 81 per ton, completely ignoring heat and the ability of specialty ammunition. Go sit the fuck down and learn basic math and reading comprehension you fucking child.
>>64919516>>64919435>>64919372The damage nerf isn't the bad thing about Rifles. The bad thing about Rifles is that their stats are fucked from the get-go. Another thing to note is that they should be carrying a lot more ammo. The Light Rifle should be packing at least 44 rounds per ton, not less than 20.
>>64905146If the rules allowed LAVs (Land-Air Vehicles), there'd probably be little need for 'mechs.
Mechs are worse tanks than tanks. What about mini mechs that are big infantry/power armour? Bigger end being votoms/heavy gear, smaller end being ma.k. type armored fighting suits. How far can you scale up infantry before it stops working/stops being infantry?>more dakka>more armor>protected against shrapnel/concussion from airburst munitions/grenades/mortar rounds>sensor package>climate control>CRBN protection
>>64919781As long as it can fit through a door or go up stairs it’s still useful. You want your infantry to be able to do infantry things so once it’s too big to fit inside of a building it’s just too big in general.
>>64919316I'd tell you to go die to Savannah Master spam, but it's a sad day when a mechspam thread is still better than the /pol/turdie spam threads.
>>64919781I'd put the max weight at about 500 lbs. Plus or minus 100. It's a decent amount of weight to play with but still not drastically more than a couple normal dudes. If the stairs can take a dozen dudes at a time then it should be able to take one power armor. Also, you'll probably want to add an ECM package. There's a lot of drones and man-portable radar these days and you'll want a countermeasure even if it's just a soft counter. Maybe point the jammers at a 45° downwards? It'll bounce the jamming off the ground so a seeker can't just follow the signal.
>>64905146They are not, Still Bbattlemech makes good argument since it includes cultural ones and power tripping humans being idiots. IRL you need magic tech to make them viable. Once you have that magic tech you probably will go into other directions than mechs. >>64908561I mean Afghanistan would be a good use case for light mechs. Roads are full of IED-s, so you need something that doesn't rely on roads. Sometimes you encounter terrain choke points like bridges that can have IED-s. Bypass them with jump jets. Lasers give you ability to stay in fight for a long time and they are still effective against infantry. You are fast and have AMS to deal with RPG-s. You need several magic-techs to do it but i will argue that fusion tech alone is worth more than trillions in R&D.
>>64921318I mean desu your use-case is basically just solved by helicopters.
>>649214774chan filter strikes again!
>>64921477Yeah as i said once you have magic tech tech you will probably go into other directions. Flying unit is probably the answer. Not a helicopter since rotor is vulnerable. Some armored maneuverable VTOL probably since fusion engines can feel even power hungry propulsion.As current tech with this mission capabilities. No Heli does not occupy that niche. It can bypass IED-s but It's somewhat vulnerable to RPG's. Your operating time does not allow you to continuously support infantry, your munitions are also limited.
The tech in BT is mainly based on a poor understanding of 80s tech. It also fell i to the trap of the time period when they thought tech cant possibly get much better!
>>64921652>magic tech tech you will probably go into other directionsOnce you have magic tech you start operating under rule of cool, and battlemech combat is totally sweet. It counts for more than you know.
>>64925012Completely inferior to Armored Core combat. It's just not cool enough.
>>64915977Bump
>>64925244Everybody has their preferences, but all mecha combat is super cool.
>>64920944Nobody outside of a very small group of people actually knows how jamming works.
>>64905146The answer is always no.
>>64919516>completely ignores how autocannons are still betteryou fucking retard, it's not enough that autocannons are "better" Rifles must struggle to damage mechs or else the setting makes no sense.Rifles are literally IN SETTING to illustrate the insufficiency of slow firing modern artillery against mech armor. It is not enough that they are "not cost effective" they must struggle to penetrate and deal damage at all, that's literally why they're in the game.
BOTH TANKS AND MECHS WOULD BE OBSOLETE IN A WORLD IN WHICH POWER ARMOR EXISTS!
>>64905146Mech would 100% work.If they ARE cheaper and super easy to maintain than any other modern vechicals.
>>64932882judging by the roid rage posting style and obsession with power armors, we have a clanner elemental here
>>64932873>slow firing artillery is bad against mechs>looks at sniper, thumper, and other artillery Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
>>64938250
>>64938250I noticed you took out the word "Modern" from the post you quoted lmao
>>64943189I want mecha combat to be real so bad bros
I wish the Quickdraw wasn't so ass. I like the look of the thing. >more firepower in the rear arch than the frontWhat a whacky little dude. >>64938250Rifles are analogous to modern weapons. Getting shot with a light rifle is like getting hit with the cannon of an Abrams or something. The whole point is that they literally bounce the fuck off of your mech unless they're heinously oversized because they're ancient and their ammo is ineffective against modern armor.
Someone explain the armor these things use. They seem to be able to take countless hits from cruise missiles of their time period not to mention other weapons. How would our weapons even affect them?
>>64945662>How would our weapons even affect them?The answer is that they probably wouldn't without massively overcommitting. Military grade armor in Battletech bounces anything that we wouldn't qualify as 'large artillery.' The U.S. or Europe could kill one - or maybe even a company of them, but it'd be a big fucking mess.But the armor is ablative - firefights revolve around sanding armor off of one spot until you can score a hit at something internal, the idea being that the armor works by absorbing large amounts of energy and then shearing off in small pieces or sublimating in cases where it gets zapped with an energy weapon.
>>64945662https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Essay:_BattleMech_Technology#ArmorStandard BattleMech armor is basically superhard but somewhat brittle on purpose, so that wacky sci-fi attacks it can't stop outright effectively break off or shatter the layered armor in an ablative fashion. It's sort of like ceramic rifle plates in that regard, or add-on composite armor on tanks. You can absolutely make better armor even in-universe, but cost, complexity, and required technology levels of these skyrocket exponentially which can be a big problem after the Inner Sphere basically bombed itself into a quasi-Stone Age in some respects. Only after the recovery of several Star League Memory Cores and the reverse-engineering of Clan tech do these armors become anything more than one-off prototype gear, and even then they're at least partially ablative.
>>64945700Ironically while single hits from even 120mm APFSDS don't do enough instantaneous kinetic energy transfer to meaningfully effect 'Mech armor (which is why Light Rifles effectively do zero damage both in-universe and in the tabletop), a good solid multi-round burst of something similar, like from an AC/10 autocannon, can definitely transfer enough energy to do serious damage. Another thing to note is that in-universe/game, machine guns of .50 caliber and up can actually inflict damage onto a 'Mech, albeit only a single point of armor damage for hundreds of API-T rounds fired/hit in about the same spot. Sort of like punching a solid wood block won't do anything appreciable to it, but high-grit sandpaper will eventually wear away the outer layers.
>>64906796engineering and logistics is the only feasable use.
>>649457132 points from a standard machine gun, sorry. I got it mixed up with the light machine gun's 1 point. Note that both do additional d6s of damage against infantry (which are represented in tabletop terms as a single "unit" like a tank or 'Mech).
>>64945713>>64945700>>64945662>>64945656There's significant disagreement in the Lore over whether 120mm modern guns are Light, Medium, or Heavy rifles. One source lists a literal, unaltered WW2 tank gun as a Medium Rifle, another gives a sample Heavy Rifle as a 150mm gun built using modern technology. The simple explanation for the armor is that it's single hit protective abilities are higher than real world materials, as if we're talking about rifle bullets hitting hardened ceramics. This is a normal thing in science fiction; you take a technology advanced for your time and you increase the scale beyond what is possible while keeping the same "logical relationship" at the fantastical scale. Now, the problem is to exploit this relative weakness to multiple impacts you need an absurd volume of fire, because you're going to need to put those projectiles extremely close together to actually punch through. This is the real reason why "Rifle" class weapons aren't very effective, is because they're single shot weapons and you're never going to hit the lottery of landing two shells almost on top of each other on a moving target like that without high volume. This effect exists to a degree with all armor, it's just exaggerated in BT. You really CAN chew through tanks with non penetrating impacts, armor, even steel armor, does in fact degrade around impact points, straining, stressing, work hardening, and cracking (sometimes cracking or shearing invisibly to the naked eye). It's extremely rare you get to take advantage of this phenomenon, but it is possible to compromise armor with one hit, then punch through it with another. >>64945713MGs (that is the class of weapons specifically called MGs can range all the way up to 30mm in setting) It is probably the case that any .50 caliber gun doing appreciable damage to a tank is probably either firing something more powerful than 50BMG, or doing it's damage through an absurd number of rounds (thousands, not hundreds)
>>64919781
>>64938250Need to get around to illustrating how visually balanced a 20 ton artillery piece would look on a 25 ton Mech.
>>64945713>>64945786>machine gunsNothing at all about machineguns is consistent with anything else in battletech. Lorewise, standard MGs are 50 cal up to 20mm machineguns/autocannons, and AC2s are 30mm up to 203mm autocannons, buuuut:A standard IS MG weighs 0.5 tonnes and can fire for 200 rounds per tonne of ammunition for 2 damage per round - so 500kg gun, does 2 damage per 5kg of ammo, or 250kg of gun, 2.5kg of ammo per damage.An IS AC2 is 6 tonnes and can fire for 45 rounds with 1 tonne of ammo for 2 damage per round - so 6000kg gun, does 2 damage per 22.22kg, or 3000kg of gun, 11.1kg of ammo per damage.>muh rangeStill doesn't make any sense. Neither kinetic nor chemical energy works that way. Also, 5kg burst mass of MG bullets ablating ONE WHOLE TONNE of bullshit future space magic non-reactive ablative armor needs some pretty whack physics NGL.Basically, the crunch damage system in BT doesn't make any sense at all or line up to lore properly, and the place where it fails most obviously and hardest is with MGs which had to be hilariously overbuffed in crunch to have any chance of being used at all, but even then were totally useless other than against infantry because of the super low range and crit risk. Needed a lot more thought put into it and it's always been kind of shit and not properly thought through.It's an area where video games have consistently done it better. MWLL having them as basically a very light AC1 (super long range, super low damage) purely for anti-BA and harrassing aeros was a pretty good and lore consistent solution. Even PGIs games where they're recast as doing near no armor damage but with the crits dialled up way past 11 was a better solution than the OG TT solution.Still needs work.
>>64948612Considering some of the images for machine guns are effectively rotary cannons, it makes sense. I can see a .50 caliber gatling roughly similar to the GAU-19 chewing through BAR 10 armor by sandblasting it with thousands of rounds per minute.
>>64949721>Also, 5kg burst mass of MG bullets ablating ONE WHOLE TONNEEither 2.5kg or TWO WHOLE DAMAGE, you get it. Ofc, the burst mass is really way less since ammo weight includes the case and propellant.IIRC it's like, 37 rounds of M2 AP 50 cal including the link (for 5kg of total mass)....That's a burst mass of only 1.7 kg (over a 10 second BT round lol - ie burst mass per second of 0.17kg). This means that even a mediocrely armed WWII fighter plane like the P51D with a burst mass of 0.54kg per second from 6x50 cals should be able to output about 6 damage over a turn to a battlemech.
>>64949724>>64948612>It is probably the case that any .50 caliber gun doing appreciable damage to a tank is probably either firing something more powerful than 50BMG, or doing it's damage through an absurd number of rounds (thousands, not hundreds)Nah, because we have their ammo weight and they only consume 5kg of ammo per turn for 2 damage. Machineguns are just a badly designed piece of crunch that have always conflicted with the lore. See >>64949721 and >>64949732
>>64948612The WW2 guns are an extreme abstraction, with smaller tank guns literally using the same rules as power armor portable recoilless rifles. The WW2 weapons are also slightly modified, mostly by improving their ranges and giving some of them extra bonuses when fired against other WW2 grade units. But at the end of the day, the game only barely has rules for early space weapons, and it applied some of those to even earlier non-space designs as an april fools joke.
>>64905146The human body is designed to be versatile, that same versatility doesn't extend to anatomically upright humanoid robots. As robots will always be infinitely less complex than the human body is, it makes sense to design them differently. It also makes sense to have dozens of smaller robots rather than one large one.
>>64948612Seems to me like HESH rounds would be effective against BT armor since they're designed to create spall.
>>64952304The single hit resistance could take many forms, if the armor is layered, HESH would be much less effective.
>>64949734>>64949732You can't hold absolutely to in game weights, then you get scenarios where an abrams could shoot it's entire ammo stores at a light mech and do no damage but instakill an Atlas by driving into it.
>>64905146Battlemechs were made obsolete when Battle Armour was introduced you dumb fucking spammer. And go back to /tg/ where they hate BAs, you cretinhttps://youtu.be/mcLBsOZa7M0?si=rPtG9hCaaPYTwxfS
>>64952614'Mech armor is described as several layers in-universe, with an outer layer of super-hard steel, behind that a layer of boron nitride ceramic, under that a layer of titanium honeycomb as a kind of weight-bearing scaffold, all over a layer of polymer sealant that makes things air/water/space tight. Basically this armor is extremely hard but also extremely brittle, because reasons.
>>64952304Yes and no. Different materials conduct vibrations at different speeds. This creates interference that messes with vibrations traveling to deeper layers. On the other hand, the super hard layers would conduct vibrations extremely well and you'd see entire layers detach even if you don't see penetrations.
>>64952645Battlemechs and power armor have different roles. I cannot wait for IRL mecha combat.
>>64945716Engineering and logistics wins wars.
>>64957440Power armor combat is more likely. As long as they fit indoors they're useful for door kicking ops. Think Infantry+. Mechs have a problem in that they don't really have a combat niche. Logistics and engineering niches, sure, but not really direct combat.
>>64952304Its supposed to be a sort of Styrofoam that is used on starships for micrometeroid strikes
>>64961773Maybe a similar principle, but that armor is extremely light and optimized only for super high velocity impacts. Conventional, slower weapons would actually be more effective.
>>>/m/>>>/v/>>>/toy/>>>/lgbt/
>>64952645>posts video of gameplay that doesn't reflect how BA actually operate in-universe
>>64905146We have this thread nearly every fucking week. What is wrong with you retards?IF THEY WERE VIABLE, WE WOULD HAVE THEM. FUCKING STOP.
>>64969247>IF THEY WERE VIABLE, WE WOULD HAVE THEM. FUCKING STOPUntrue. The stuff that makes them viable is secret tech. It's going to be a fun day when it all gets declassified.
>>64969247Nobody is forcing you to post. For that matter, Excavators exist and they're basically 1/3rd of a mech.
>>64952628>AbramsIn universe the M1 Abrams is batshit insane fast for it's engine tonnage, Battletech ICE is Sterling Engine levels of weight to power.
>>64970101>The stuff that makes them viable is secret techThe stuff that makes them unviable is geometry
>>64969247it's engagement bait farming for other sites. People drop these threads and steal all the most replied to bait posts in order to repost on other platforms where that kind of engagement is monetized.
>>64906996Finally, a good post. On a planet with no rain and low gravity, mechs might make sense.
>>64912871Someone post it.
>>64970226>Excavators exist and they're basically 1/3rd of a mech.Yeah. The easy and sometimes actually useful third.
>>64970636The video games and pre rendered scenes (and often, descriptions in novels) depict the mechs as two or even three times faster than their in game stats.Logically, mech weights are for their equip rating, not their actual weight. At least one of the recent games confirms this, as your mech can be stripped down visually piece by piece to "zero weight" and still have the majority of it's mass left at the end.
>>64915977>>64914928Bump
>>64974747I had a great time with a marauder I built in MW5. LP x2, MP x2, gauss rifle and some speed. Worked great
>>64972378Depictions in video are rarely accurate due to field of view tricks. That's before you employ animators with no sense of scale.
>>64970101>>64970226Get a reality check, you gomers.
>>64975946Poor trolling attempt.
>>64974747>shimrauder
>>64975550Those depictions are more accurate because the table top speeds don't allow for running, or even natural walking, both things described in the books.No one actually pictures Battlemechs awkwardly shuffling like penguins.
>>64978768But that still doesn't account for the sense of scale.
>>64908160The Annihilator was explicitly designed to be parked in the middle of a skyscraper-less city during times of war and shoot anything approaching it. It has the top speed of a Soviet tank trying to reverse because of this.
>>64968014Proof?
>>64975550It is explicitly mentioned in source material older than the newest batch of video games that turned them into slow stompies that the gyros of mechs are directly linked to the pilot, and that they can perform extremely human-like feats of agility like climbing, jumping (just not very far), and taking cover. The first round of mechs and their art was literally rented from mecha anime, after all.
>>64979266Doesn't matter. Artists don't accurately express the sense of scale so we have no idea if the mechs are depicted as running 40km/h or 400
>>64908160the rifleman is a one man skybroom.
stormcrowmy favouriteand it smells quite like freeborn scum in here
>>64979332Would have been better with treads. Especially because of how battlemechs have cooling issues.
>>64979359Based bird mech appreciator
>>64979360Everything runs on nuclear reactors and uses a McGuffin material that directly converts electricity into mechanical force with little space or weight required at the cost of being very thermally conductive. Mechs having a large surface area and a cockpit not surrounded on all sides by heat generating myomer is the excuse.>But why no treads?Treads can't climb skyscrapers like a tree and then top attack ambush a column.
>>64979375>Mechs having a large surface area and a cockpit not surrounded on all sides by heat generating myomer is the excuse.It's in the rules. Non-mechs don't have to deal with heat. >Treads can't climb skyscrapers like a tree and then top attack ambush a column.Neither can many battlemechs. Hands don't come standard.
>>64979375>Treads can't climb skyscrapers like a tree and then top attack ambush a column.Just get a helicopter
>>64979457Or have jumpjets standard on all models.
>>64975550>no sense of scaleSpeaking off I hate how in nuMechWarrior games mechs are twice bigger than they should be. It's especially egregious when you look how xbox hueg cockpits are from the outside but they're super tiny on the inside. That's all on PIG though so no surprises there.
>>64979359>freeborn scumI've been waiting for this phrase
>>64976018Na he's right. You two were idiots. Mechs aren't viable.
>>64979266>>64979290There's just no universe where anyone is going to accept that horses can outrun building sized Battlemechs described as "running" from foot to foot. Leg length determines the minimum natural gait of a body. If Mechs move like the tabletop says they have to awkwardly shuffle like grandmas.
>>64949677No way that's a legal design kek
>>64979457Helicopters can't also take hits
>>64905181>eastern mechaThat's pretty gay, Anon.
>>64905146>How viable are battlemechs as weapons of war?Shockingly.>can suffer several hits and even locomotion system failures due to their systems not using motors but instead bundles of synthetic muscles>due to muscle strength, can carry far more weight than the average tank with far greater articulation>nothing short of a powerplant failure or direct hit on the canopy takes it out in a single hit, meaning anything firing on it is subject to immediate return fire>able to be equipped with a whole host of weapon systemsSure a tank could put a round in it, but it can also carry a lot more armor and suffer being pen'd far better.It's pretty much space magic bullshit, but it is viable.
>>64949677>lightest mech running an arty cannonIt's like the lunatics that run hunchbacks for melee brawls with assault classes on crack.
>>64982022western mecha isn't real, you're just a delusional weeb in denial. Your pic is literally just a boxy glaug from Macross and your game is just Robotech the table top game.
>>64980552The fractional accounting checkbox allows for the fuzzy math to make things fit for the Mech.Internal structure 1.5 tons to 1.25Engine 0.5 tons to 0.38Armor 0.5 tons to 0.17 (3 points ferrro)This frees up 0.7 tons for 7 rounds of ammo.Otherwise it would have no ammo with nine points of armor or no armor if a half ton of ammo could be added for five rounds. The tank version without fractional accounting would have zero armor or ammo.>>64982059The Sniper Cannon would have fit better being 15 tons and 10 crits but only have a 12 hex range of around 360 meters, so I decided to go with the full sized Sniper artillery piece instead at 20 tons and 20 crits that has the 18 map range closer to 9,000 meters to maximize the ridiculousness of it.
>>64980559Neither can a mech.
>>64980475Battlemechs are fairly small canonically. All mechs are considered in full cover when hiding behind 2 height level terrain and a height level is 6 meters. Sourcebooks put all mechs between 7-18 meters tall.
>>64983803Yes they can
>>64983843No. Any mech would have to have very thin armor since it has so much more surface area to cover.
>>64983908No, they don't havw to fly so weight is not nearly as much of a concern
>>64983927Weight is a concern, otherwise we would've made the P-1000 Ratte tank.
>>64979396>Hands don't come standardThat depends entirely on the mech, but also plenty of them have jetpacks/jetboots.
>>64983932*Not as much of a concern. Does that make you feel better?
>>64984123So it's just a shittier tank then.
>>64979254Elemental BA has a top ground speed of 10.8kph, and a standard loadout of a SRM2 launcher with 4 missiles, a small laser/flamer/machine gun, and modular anti-personnel mount, with high speed movement carried out by jump jets. A singular BA trooper simply lacks the firepower or mobility to kill a mech by its lonesome which is why the minimum formation size is 5 Elementals. The gameplay posted has individual BA function as a light mech in a BA sized package.
>all this Shimmering Sword ArtI was a part of his competition groups in Mechwarrior Online for a little while. I also was in his thread when he did his first reindition of the Marauder (Re-imagining to avoid copyright at the time). I got him to do his first space-scape background.I've had a long time to think of the usefulness of mecha. Nigh quarter of a century.Three things stand out:1: Hills and a tanks inability to fire over them with its own sensors. A top gun with a camera peeking over a building with legs that elevate you to whatever height (chicken legs) would be great.2: Having arms that aim further up means anti air capabilities. The video games do a HORRIBLE job of sharing how this works, but it still stands. If it can aim up, it can fight shit.3: New age of drone warfare and the idea of having anti drone tech matches the idea that everything is vulnerable now. Mechas will not be able to hide, but they can at least try to counter.Modern mecha will look absolutely nothing like in popular media. They will be four legs or more, and will have lots of all-direction bubble turrets that can aim over its spinning axis. Anything else is "recoiless" formatted. I don't believe they'll be using missiles.
>>64984288> A top gun with a camera peeking over a building with legs that elevate you to whatever height (chicken legs) would be great.It’s really not that important, or else they’d retrofits tanks with a cherry picker on them.
>>64980068im gonna go down on ye mum like a whole merc regiment
DEATH
>>64985797BY
>>64985798SNU
>>64985799SNU
>>64983819I was a bit confused by what you said until I realized you didn't understand what I said and just latched on to the "building sized" remark and imagined something like an office building or skyscraper.
>>64984288So, something like this?
>>64985797>>64985798Why'd this artist give them those big cheek lines that make them look old and gross?
>>64985797>>64985798>>64985799>>64985802People don't properly comprehend how huge Elementals would be.If she moves in with you, you'll need a new kitchen to store her cutlery.
>>64912634>Rule of cool counts more in warfare than you guys know.It counts in arms sales during peacetime, during war everything is downstream from supply chain and logistics.The most important consideration is always to not lose, which requires the ability to attack and defend, reliably and sustainably, for an indefinite or carefully risk-assessed duration. This is because, if actors are rational, it'll probably end with an unequal treaty before a decisive victory is earned, the former of which is favourable to both parties than the latter.Also, the future of space warfare will be bio-weapons, since genetic experimentation and modification is as inevitable requirement for populating the galaxy.
>>64991522Don't tell me what I do or don't comprehend.
>>64991460High aristocratic cheekbones were considered handsome on women.
>>64905155he's dead
>>64905146Center of gravity x mass x earth-G is going to destroy the leg joints unless unobtanium.Mecha might work as multi-medium multi-purpose platforms in low-G, which makes them closer to civvie heavy work vehicles.I heard the Humvee tried to be good at three things at once, and became 80% good at each of those three things, so it 20% sucked at all times. If the military industrial complex of the mecha-future is in the business of making money, there will be Humvee generalist mechs that always 20% sucks; if the MIC's business existential defense, we might get specialist vehicles and complementary platforms.
>>64908561A mech is a pressurised mobile weapon platform that can be dropped onto a target from space (landing using jump jets and legs) and can fight in most environments - in arctic, desert, vacuum, underwater, etc. Your mundane vehicles are often better in their own environments; (tanks on land, choppers and jets in air, subs and boats in water) but not many of those can fight outside what they are built for. They also cannot be deployed from space by a orbiting dropship (remember warfare in the BT universe is mostly interplanetary) and need to be carried to and deployed from secure landing zones before they can fight. A mech can operate everywhere, it's a jack of all trades that is designed for use in planetary assaults and capable of being deployed and fight anywhere on a planet from orbit. Think of them as mechanised paratroops, good in their niche role but not the 'instant win' vehicle that the current IP promotes them as (because they want to sell the models).
>>65001785> They also cannot be deployed from space by a orbiting dropshipThat’s only because nobody has applied that tech to vehicles.
>>64909432>airspace too contested for helicoptersHelicopters can hover low to the ground
>>65004913That hasn't stopped them from getting torn apart by MANPADS in ukraine
>>65000039This mech can carry 1000 missiles in MWO.>stare at that image and see how stupid that seems
Clan Hell's Horsegirls, perpetually on the hunt for bondsmen to muck out the stables.
>>65005544AIslop
>>65001785>They also cannot be deployed from space by a orbiting dropship
>>65007891Getting your ass shot up while making a LAPES drop isn't exactly a shining example of Orbital Drop capabilities
>>65007763Slop is the slop of vocabulary.
>>65005406Which just means a mech would also be vulnerable to MANPADS
>>64984288Tracked or legged, providing cover for infantry or acting as their own armored arm, the turret-covered landcruisers of the future are going to be kino.
>>64979359All clanners must hang, clanner genocide NOW
>>64905146So, how bad is the new announcement? More ilClan slop?
>>64984267In addition with the current rules BA essentially have energy shields, everything else has to divide the armor across multiple components, while battle armor gets that armor as a single blob. And battle armor also gets steep discounts on armor and weapon weight, and not taking splash damage from MG's and flamers.
>>65010588It's the first rules update in decades and it's mostly minor revisions, not quite an edition change. I liked some of the proposed rules and disliked others, reserving judgement until I see all the shit I liked is in or all the shit I hated is in.
>>65010588The most notable critique I've heard was that they've de-valuated piloting skill upgrades by making all the common piloting skill rolls easier. Most of the gear-related stuff is good, like the AC fixes were necessary and anti-missile systems are once again less retarded.
>>65010671> the AC fixes were necessaryAC2s and 5s still blow.But they’re going to forever as long as CGL is unwilling to touch record sheets.
>>64905146I prefer "Rope-a-nautical technology". all vehicles must be based on the oncept of throwing a grapple of some kind, and dragging yourself along it or establishing two-way lines as zip lines.All vehicles, APCs, fighters, whatever, all depend on fucking spear chucking a rope to it and ZIP.And ummmm it should be nuclear so I have the juice for my record player too.
We don't even need to go IRL to absolutely shred BT batllemechs. Allow me one thing: to remove hand actuators and gain a small free tonnage bonus for lobbing off the arms and casemating guns to the shoulder hardpoints, and your entire balancing goes out the windowWith that little edit, I can put on the battlefield>Catapult firepower on a Bushwacker>Mad Cat 2 firepower on a Timber Wolf>Jagermech solutions in Blood Asp sizeSince close-range engagements are obsolete once you have enough money to afford your first large laser / gauss rifle / LRM rack, I'll be beating the shit out of you every time, carrying basically a permanent 5-10% tonnage bonus, before we even get into the detail that my mechs will be harder to hit, so I'll have some 5-10% incoming damage reduction bonus.
>>65010194Modernoid trash lmao
>>65014838I heard this show sucked ass.
>>65009994Battleships should have looked like this IRL
>>64905146The only viable place for humanoid mecha in war is as space habitat combat vehiclesArms and legs enable you to maneuver off of surfaces without wasting precious remass
>>65020920>Cannons that can delete half a mountain but only if it comes within a quarter milelol funny stump gun
>>65017159nah it was good
>>64905146As a heavy platform of metal and its gear would be long range nukes.
>>64914928>>64915977Bump
>>65011243>fail piloting skill check once>anon proceeds to roll around on the ground in his faggy no arm mech until he gets a engine crit and fucking dies
>>65024308Simply an issue of skill
>>65017159It's sorta technical so you need actual science literacy in order to get the full effect. >>65020920Look into French Dreadnoughts and Pre-dreadnoughts>>65024078>picWhat's this from?
>>65020997Goes back the "Behold, a Mech" meme. Start mechs as utility and engineering vehicles and adapt them as combat engineering. Climbing along the outside of a space station is cheaper than flying and possibly safer if the station is spinning for artificial gravity. Extending this, a mech would be really useful for wrangling station weapons. Just crawl on out there with spare ammo strapped to it's back and use the manipulators as power tools when you need them.
THE SKIES BELONG TO ME
>>65023802
>>65026423
>>64984267>>65010616Now show me the part that says CBT is 100% lore accurate
>>65026070> Start mechs as utility and engineering vehiclesBut why when bobcats and excavators already exist?
>>65024308>Urbanmechs and Fleas roll around on the regThis is your brain on BT-BS (Battletech Bullshit) apologism.Custom-kitted Urbies absolutely shit all over medium mechs, way above their tonnage, they're only not used because of elitism and muh honor, like "nice guys" don't use the noob tube in og Modern Warfare. Even with "muh myomer" and "muh magic direct fusion-to-electric reactors", rigorously thought-out battlemechs would look much more like the BF2142 L5 than anything Battletech puts out, and I'm saying that as someone who definitely would drop $100 per model if Hobbymaster put out a Timber Wolf or Bushwacker from MWO, or a Mad Cat 4 art-designed to MWO standard. In any case, when a game designer lets me delet the arms off of a Bushwacker and mount a casemated ER Large Laser in place of each, and give it dual bunny-ears with LRMs, I'll be chilling at the far end of the battlefield with a full lance of my extra spicy whackers and rekting your entire formation with no counterplay.Point is, if even your own setting can get roasted within the bounds of its own rules, you have to rethink your blind loyalties
>>65026663> excavators already exist?Ah ha! You Fool! Excavators were the real mechs all along!/sBut seriously, excavators are basically 1/3rd of a mech already. I figure if we ever see actual mechs it's going to be an evolution of an excavator, not a battle tank.
>>65026991> basically 1/3rd of a mech already.Yeah.The part that’s easy and actually useful.There’s zero reason to stick them on legs which, you know, is the part that makes a Mech a Mech.
a weapons platform with biped legs is not very energy efficient.There is ONE (1) major advantage. And that is intimidation. Large mechs farm aura on the battlefield.
>>65027340Fuck off Kerensky
>>65028377No no, he's right.
>>65027145>There’s zero reason to stick them on legs More suspension travel and the ability to sidestep in tight confines. >which, you know, is the part that makes a Mech a Mech.Pic related.
>>64905146We would if we could. The rest is just cope.
>>65029175We can and do, you're just not allowed to know about it
>>65029067> More suspension travel and the ability to sidestep in tight confines. Irrelevant.
>>65030198Very relevant. The world is getting more urbanized so maneuverability in tight quarters will get more and more important. Likewise, cover and concealment will become more important than armor so being able to raise and lower the chassis to take advantage of the terrain will certainly be useful. Finally, spider excavators exist.
>>65025317I think it's just a pixel art piece
YES. PIG IS FINALLY DEAD.
>>64905146They can cross rivers without the need for an assault bridge, and also climb over mountanous terrain while tanks and other AFV's would need to go through predictable paths.
>>65035330Hands also means it can be used as an engineering vehicle for setting up assault ridges and securing paths over said mountains.
>>65035330>Sinks into the mud and bottoms out worse than any tracked vehicle ever wouldMechlets really don't have a brain
>>65037283You know what works better than hands for setting up bridges?An actual bridge layer.
>>65035330If you can get a Mech there, you can get a tank there.
>>65037425Only for certain prefab bridges with limited spans. You want something bigger you'll need to push out a bridge.
>>65037786Which you can do with already existing engineering equipment, or by using a pontoon bridge. And if you’re at the point where you need that sort of bridging equipment, you’re looking at a full combat engineering unit, so it’s a waste of resources to bring in a highly complicated and expensive frontline combat unit.Which runs back into the eternal issue that plagues mechs: there’s zero goddamn reason to spend tens of billions of dollars developing a novel form of combat vehicle plus it’s logistics tail just to fill a niche that’s already been filled.
>>65037879Also, why do you think tanks can’t cross rivers? Abrams can ford rivers four feet deep unprepared, and IIRC something like eight feet if you have a fording kit. Anything deeper than that and a Mech would need a bridge anyway, so that’s not really an advantage.
>>65037879Yeah but mechs are cool. Mecha combat is based.
>>65037887>Anything deeper than that and a Mech would need a bridge anywayNo? They are sealed, and capable of operating on worlds with much higher pressures than 1 atm. 20m depth shouldn't be a problem.
>>65041412Looked it up in Tactical Operations. Crush depth for a mech is 90m. Deeper for the largest mechs.
>>65037887It's not about crossing the river, it's setting up a bridge so you can cross it quickly. For that you want something like an excavator but able to wade in the thick river mud. >>65037879>Which you can do with already existing engineering equipment,Mono-taskers? How inefficient!>pontoon bridgeAnd how do you set up a pontoon bridge?>you’re looking at a full combat engineering unit,Excellent, you've made my point. A mech can replace an entire combat engineering unit. Now obviously you're wrong but it's funny you've looped around to supporting mechs without realizing it.
>>64905146I had a bizzare dream where I was a succession wars locust pilot, doing infantry support and running though WW1 esque enemy trenches ripping them to shreds while my side cheered. It was pretty good since their field guns couldn’t track the locust but it can sprint near anywhere.I had sort of forgotten about BattleTech before the dream but how wouldn’t an armored car that moves at 100mph, and can survive many anti material weapons not be good infantry support?
Jess Christ, how is this thread still alive? Its the post equivalent of a zombie mech.
>>65042053Dedicated mecha autists.
