[Malorn]

Originally Posted by 2coolforu

A hovertank is FAR more realistic than a mech - large armored mechs will never be introduced to any army ever, not even when we have hovertanks, las-cannons and anti-matter engines and it's a simple matter of surface area to volume ratio's and how visible it is.

For example consider a tank, it has a low profile presenting a small target to the enemy and allowing it to hide and go hull down while presenting a small area for the enemy to strike, it also means that it can point its smallest area (the front of the tank) towards its enemy and have this be the most heavily armored point allowing maximum survivability.

(1) Surface area to volume ratio - A tank is effectively rectangular with a relatively low surface area to volume ratio, this is important as it means a set amount of armor can be a lot thicker on this vehicle than it can be on a mech which has a much higher surface area to volume ratio. as it has low volume high surface area parts like the legs, arms, cockpit etc, you simply couldn't armor all these areas to any useful extent without having a vehicle that sinks into the mud.

(2) Mobility - Legs aren't a particularly great way for a machine to get around, wheels and tracks are better ways to apply force and a gigantic vehicle on legs would apply all its weight into the ground over a very small surface area - it would get bogged down easily and even if it sinks a small amount into the ground the friction would be huge. It's very hard to get to high speeds on legs and if one gets taken out you are in trouble nor will a giant mech be moving very fast at all given power to weight ratios.

(3) Weaponry - A giant mech isn't a great mounting for weaponry, there's a reason tanks have one 120/125 mm cannon not two 90mm cannons. The power of the cannon generally grows exponentially with its bore, its better to have a 120mm cannon that is definitely going to penetrate an enemy armored vehicles front armor than two 90mm's that will have zero effect. A mech would also lack a turret and instead have to mount the weaponry on some mechanism that allowed them to turn similar to what SPG's used in WW2, however the reason we don't use these is because they wear out extremely fast and are pretty inaccurate. Lacking a turret would also mean the mech would have to turn to face targets and would lack any form of gyroscopic stabilization preventing it's ability to fire on the move.

Not only that but a mech is pretty tall which means weaponry near the top would create a huge moment around the feet at the bottom multiplying recoil massively but a tank has a very low center of mass and a small moment around its base making it a very stable firing platform.

(4) Complexity - Just because you can make something incredibly complex doesn't mean that you should, a tank is simple and if something goes wrong you can tell what it is. Not much can go wrong with its tracks or engine and battlefield repairs can be made, however legs would require complex machinery, hydraulics or other complex forms of mechanics to move which makes repairs harder and creates more potential problems.


Basically there are many reasons outside of technological limitations as to why mechs will not be used, the most likely form of mech is a human scale suit for soldiers to wear - nothing more than an exo-skeleton simply because the surface area to volume will matter less at lower sizes and power to weight will be vastly higher meaning a human could lift more. But as battle vehicles they would be laughably useless and would fail against any equally technologically advanced tank at the time.

A hovertank however would be insanely useful, it could cross rivers and boggy terrain and there are mechanisms that could create this. Perhaps the Vanu have knowledge of room-temperature superconduction which would allow them to levitate tanks pretty easily.

Wow, I'm impressed at this. Makes sense. I'd add to it the fact that tanks can shield infantry from enemy fire (the purpose for which they were originally invented). A mech can't really shield anyone from anything.