Are Mecha a feasible alternative to tanks.

Maybe it's just me, but I think mechs are a feasible alternative. If anyone's played Ring of Red, they make the mechs seem more like tanks in an alternate post-WWII strategy game. Also, Gasaraki makes mech designs a lot more feasible as alternatives, though a few things in the show are out of place.

I still say no because of resources and money.

And because being tall is tactically retarded, since all it is going to accomplish is setting you up as a target easier than you would if you were short. I look at it like this: imagine you are on a firing range and there is silhouettes of a mech, a tank, an soldier, and a truck, which one of those would you see first? That is the one that usually gets shot first, and therefore is the first to die.

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You haven't mentioned that height is also a tactical advantage. Higher elevation has always been a tactical advantage. Hypotheticaly then, if your ideal army was made, and my ideal army and mechs were made and this is in an era where mechs are possible, and the armies are on equal elevation and approaching each other and are too afraid to deploy aircrafts because each side has heavy AA's on their side, and satallites/radar are jammed. Who would have the tactical advantage? The people with mechs because they can see further. Who gets off the first shot? The side with the mech. I know couple hundred feet doesn't seem like much of a difference to seeing the enemy first, but it does. Example, old ships using masts as a vantage point for spotters not ON the deck itself. Plus we aren't only relying on human vision, but digital vision. With the given advantage of heighth the computer would therefore have additional feed to work off of. Sure mechs will be a bigger target, but which side gets to fire off first? Not only will the mechs be able to fire but they can relay the positions of enemy causing the whole army on the mech's side to fire artillery first. While the position of the mechs side of the army will be given away, the other side would have already had casualties.

Height was a tactical advantage, right up until the invention of the anti-tank rounds for planes, modern tank tactics involve you being lower than your enemy so you can shoot them in the belly, now for planes, if you can go into outer space and fight effectively then by all means gain all the altitude you can get, but for ground-pounders and ground based vehicles, height and altitude are a disadvantage unless you are artillery. Another problem with your theory is that due to the curvature of the earth, I will see the heads of your mechs which is basically saying "shoot me" meanwhile all you will really see of me is my turret which is fine turrets are the toughest part on the tank, while I doubt that Mecha heads are as durable, remember, if you can see me I can probably see you so both elements who ran into each other first would probably be killed or damaged by artillery

If adding the curvature of the earth to my hypotheses, then it would even be better since most modern vehicles travel spread out. If the mech at the head of the group saw your group of tanks, then your tanks would obviously see the head mech, but could it see the position of the other mechs? While that one mech with its height could gain and advantage on seeing the lower vehicular ones (since the height on your tanks are short, in order for more to be seeing what my mech is seeing they have to be in sight of this mech too) so while my mech still in kind of a formation could see more of your tanks, your tanks would maybe see only a couple, while my mech relays position to the artillery. And besides having durable heads doesn't matter against artillery fire from a far range since it comes down more vertical than horizontal.

And as for planes, the heighth is the reason why they are superior in battle. In my real opinion that is where the future of warfare lies, in the skies, but for the sake of this thread...

You would probably only see one tank, the lead tank, given the way the formations work out when tanks are driving, also most mechs don't have the range to really see or hit things that far, both would have to close or call for artillery support/bomber support. Given that most tanks are painted in a camo scheme and that most mechs are not I would probably see more than one mech at any given time, depending of course on how many there are.

Actually, mechs can be outfitted with advanced sensors and they actually can see quite far. Don't forget, a good chunk of mechs are meant to be snipers. Consider the M9 Gernsback from Full Metal Panic! and Kurtz as a pilot. He does a fine job sniping enemies in the distance and all the M9s, along with the ARX-7 Arbalest, are equipped with ECS, so they are completely invisible. That covers both range and camouflage.

In the end, who needs a mech when you have a kickass armor suit?

Hmmm, I would think the mechs would have an advantage at seeing things far away since their sights depend on digital sight rather than human eyes. As blaze wrote above, your forgetting the fact that mechs can pick up any type of weapon and use it, be it short range machine guns or sniper rounds. Also, I believe I did say artillery bombardment when I said the mech would see it. We are also talking about practical mechs not mechs like in anime where it is brightly colored with different hues. They also don't need a fixed head, they could be rounded off like the ones off star wars. Also there are quadped mechs that could probably have more speed and can cover distances faster and engage in melee combat after the artillery bombardment, while they are running and the tanks are focused on taking them down, the mechs in the back with long ranged weapons can give support and start moving up switch out weapons and give more support while the melee mechs with heavy armor or built for speed take them out up close and personal.

There is no way in god's name any tank, manned by humans, can consistently nail targets at 2 miles away just by using their normal eyes, yet alas modern tanks do. Wonder why? Advanced sensors. Tanks are already using those, and unlike the sensors on mechs, most of the ones on tanks are well hidden inside a few tons of armor, meanwhile the heads of mecha are probably not as well armored as the turret of a tank is (the turret also has the most armor of anywhere on the tank so good luck nailing that circle). Another problem with what you were saying is that the mech is the one calling in artillery, an infantry person's job, but anyone can do it. I'm just saying that when you add in artillery you are tapping into the potential for satellite weapons, jets, and other things this post is not about.

On a side note I do believe in a kick ass suit of powered armor above all else.

Frankly using a large sniper rifle to pick out targets is something anyone can do as well, the cannon on any tank is fairly efficient at sniping. A modern, human, sniper can potentially disable a tank, simply by taking all of it's sensors and periscopes out, and then killing it's crew, that is if the crew is stupid enough to not just stay put in the vehicle.

For every stealth option there is a counter, it's a matter of whether or not your country is willing to spend the money to develop and deploy it, the sword grows with the armor. To counteract ECS all you really need to do is attach sonar to your vehicle and make sure it too is well armored. I would also like to point out that any tank worth it's salt in that kind of situation would also have ECS.

I would also like to point out that the modern incarnation of a tank is already equipped to kill anything and everything it can hit, the only type of vehicle a modern tank cannot destroy is planes, and that is simply due to elevation and some targeting issues of the main cannon, however next gen tanks may have that problem solved. I believe that will be well solved before any combat mech comes online.

Hmmm... I do believe they invented ground to ground artillery a while back... Anyway, as for heads on mechs, I wasn't really clear the first time when I tried to explain that mechs don't really need heads. In anime it's just used to make it more humanoid. In real world application, I doubt that is going to be needed. You seem to be binding mechs to how it is in anime. I mean seriously if we do it the way it is in anime there is no way in hell, that tanks could win. Also, with the technology of shells progressing, there is probably going to be better shrapnel tech and when it explodes it's not only going to hit the tanks turret, it will also pierce the lower parts of the tank. Tank's also don't have as much maneuverability as mechs. The strafing option is not available, and strafing can be a HUGE lifesaver.

Changing out turrents in the heat of battle? I haven't heard of it. While mechs can quickly dispose of their current weapon and bring out a different weapon that meets the requirements of the tacitcal situation.

That is the main problem I'm having here. Even if we some how get enough money adn resources to make mechs, mobility is the key reason for using these things. The problem at the moment is that we do not have mechs that have quick movements. They are sloth like and just really slow. They would be free targets worth millions of dollars being wasted.

You don't need to change TURRETS in order to get the desired effects from a tank cannon, if you want to waste a large group of infantry, use canister shells, or the 3 machine guns the vehicle has, if you want to kill a light vehicle use HEAT rounds, or the machine guns will work here too, if you want to kill another heavily armored vehicle SABOT rounds work nicely for this, there aren't too many other tactical situations that require different weaponry, but for most problems there is a shell for that.

I'd like to point out that while the turret is the most heavily armored part of the tank, the rest of it isn't that easy to damage either, partially due to design, but mostly due to what it is made of.

I will give you 50$ if you can show me a modern tank belonging to a world power which cannot drive sideways while shooting, self-propelled howitzers are not tanks.

The point I was making about artillery was that is something anyone can do and doesn't test the ability of either vehicle.

Putting the sensors in the chest or attached to a periscope breeds so many many more problems for the mech that it really isn't worth talking about, and if you aren't putting the sensors there then where are you putting them?

What if your out of vehicles that have missle pods and you need to take out the the artillery out of range of your turrets? If it were mechs they would just neatly drop their weapon and switch for a missle launcher. As for tanks not an option in the battle field.

As for the strafing option, the side to side option is available but that takes away from advancing forward and backwards too. I mean sure tanks can turn, but have you seen how slow tanks are when turning 90 degrees?

Calling in the artillery, would you rather have a person with heigth advantage calling your shots or a person that doesn't? I mean sure infantry is doing it but as I said this battle field doesnt have any cover, and the only advantage of infantry doing it is if the infantry can be undetected.

Explain to us why installing sensors in the chest is not an option. Since sensors can be internal I really don't see a problem with it.

ALL modern sensors require an external mounting of some kind, radar requires an antenna, infrared and heat sensors need a lens which can actually collect the data, ETC. I would also like to point out that all foreseeable (sensor systems which are considered possible at this time) sensor systems have an external mounting of some kind.

The solution for getting rid of artillery which is outside of shell range? Simple, missiles, you can fire them out of the cannon.

Tanks take about 1 second to turn 90 degress, it depends on if you are stationary or not, you can turn faster when moving, because you don't have to change gears. A tank can drive north and fire east, then they can turn west and swing their barrel around to fire south, all of that takes about 5 seconds, the rest of the vehicle would be waiting for the cannon to be reloaded, which varies, but can take as long as 10 additional seconds if your loader is tired.

The point of this post is to see if the mech is better than the tank, calling in artillery is something anyone can do, and doesn't prove anything, except that calling in artillery support is a staple of modern warfare, and always will be.

Couple examples of internally mounted sensors: Sonars are installed internally, some radars are inside global spheres to protect it from environmental conditions.

Seeing as how missles are often times bigger than the cannons (especially because the fins that provide stability and accuracy) I doubt that is going to be happening...

I have never seen a tank switch 90 degrees from rest. Even if they can pull it off while moving, 1 second delay can get you killed in the battle field. The mech could make that movement switch almost instantly, making it a lot more maneuverable. Also the direction of fire is faster for a mech because the torso itself can move while the shoulder can move and the elbow can move also working 3 joints to turn to face one direction makes it much faster to aim and kill a target.

As for putting in artillery to our scenario, we have to consider many possibility by pitting the subject against different types of war machines and how they counter react to it, so it is quite a good way to see which machine is more superior by seeing how each would react to the situation in battle.

Missiles can be fired from shoulder mounted devices there is nothing stopping us from producing some that can be fired from a tank cannon, in fact the modern cannons were originally intended to be missile launchers, but in the 1980s missile tech wasn't advanced enough to pull that off.

I was actually wrong about it taking a tank 1 second to make a 90 degree turn, it takes less than a second (3 secs for the turret to do a 360, not the hull), but that is way faster than any mech can turn right, and a damn sight faster than they can do a 180degree turn, a tank can turn while stationary, they just aren't going to go stationary in battle, there is actually a specific gear on the tank for doing that.

Sonar might be the one sensor you can actually hide in the armor but it won't be worth shit on the ground when your vehicle shakes from every step it takes. Yeah radar is also a 2-3 ton addition to weight, modern tanks simply use other units' radar, you know like AWACS or JSTAR. Those spheres they place radar in are probably bigger than your mech, so good luck fitting it on your mech, remember my tank is only about twice the silhouette of a truck.

We already know how the tank responds to artillery I can't imagine the mech responding too differently, since the tank handles it efficiently enough.

Blah, as much as I want to keep this argument going since you are a good person to argue with Kais (that is coming as a compliment saying you have good ideas), I think our viewpoint on how the mechs are going to turn out is way too different without REAL life reference to go off of. Also, because we are biased we seem to over look a lot of details for each other. For example, I seemed to have forgotten that both parties will evolve in technology and not imagining that tanks would be upgraded to since this scenario takes place in the future.

I really believe combat will evolve and take to the skies, but if not I believe mechs really are a feasible alternative to tanks. I'll be stopping by every once in a while to see how it's going in this thread and your arguments with others will convince me. :D

Veritechs and the other technologies in the robotech universe make mecha a totally viable option, because everything there is so insanely deadly, but those vehicles also take the position of other vehicles also used in modern warfare, and even a few that aren't, That is the one universe where I see the tank as being useless, it is too slow, and you can't make it fast enough to keep up with the rest of your army, since the slowest weapon is the synchro cannon and that thing can be towed by any vehicle. I am including the robotech infantry, or cyclone, which has enough combat ability to engage a small army by itself.

There are real life references to about how fast mecha can turn, Macintosh made the Apple robot not too long ago, that is a fairly good example of how long it will take a humanoid robot to turn, but you have to remember that when you scale them up and add armor it will slow down quite a bit, especially if you don't want to fall down.