Re: OT: LAND WALKER -Japanese Robot suit-
 

Forget the Gundam. Let's see them build Optimus Prime!

(Cause a sentient giant robot is always cooler.)

I was pretty sure somebody got it; I just expected more fish.

Re: OT: LAND WALKER -Japanese Robot suit-
 

That too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: LAND WALKER -Japanese Robot suit-
 

In RL such machines would only serve as weapons of intimidation with no real benefit to any military application aside from fear managment.

Re: OT: LAND WALKER -Japanese Robot suit-
 

There is some advantage to a set of legs and arms on a battlefield:

Bad Terrain:
A man can climb a mountain. A horse, not so much. A car, even less. All land-bound military vehicles have some kind of terrain they must avoid; legs have less issues with many types of terrain, especially when they have arms capable of carrying the weight to suppliment on occasion.

Piloting:
There's less re-training to do when the machine is reading your motions directly off your limbs, and duplicating them near-exactly. In a car, tank, or aircraft, sure, you get the hang of the controls fairly quickly, and in not too terribly long, the vehicle is almost an extension of the driver - almost anyone could be walking around in a proper powered suit in no time flat. Shortly thereafter, dancing.

Moving Stuff:
Occasionally, awkward stuff must be moved. Sometimes, this must happen under fire. A good set of powered hands would do wonders for such things.

Re: OT: LAND WALKER -Japanese Robot suit-
 

Cybernetics has a long way to go before it comes anywhere close to matching the versatility of a real live human being. I have no doubt it will happen sometime, but I highly doubt it will be soon, and its uses would be somewhat limited even then; after all, you'd still need a human controller, so you aren't even reducing manpower requirements.

Re: OT: LAND WALKER -Japanese Robot suit-
 

Re: OT: LAND WALKER -Japanese Robot suit-
 

@Jack: Yeah, but all of that is more than counter-balanced, in my opinion, by it being a big, huge target. However, I think miniture giant robots might work - Anywhere from ten to twenty feet.

However, giant robots measured in tens of meters are a bad idea, in my opinion.

Re: OT: LAND WALKER -Japanese Robot suit-
 

Mechas would be good for crowd control. They would be *extremely* intimidating to lightly-armed riotous mobs, (unless of course they pulled a Skywalker and tangled the legs up with wire=-) and their height would be an advantage, enabling the pilot to see the entire crowd and not just the front line.

*Stomp* *stomp* *squish* *squish*

Re: OT: LAND WALKER -Japanese Robot suit-
 

A rioting populace is only intimidated by armored vehicles until they get cheaply taken out by some improvised device or cheap portable anti-vehicle weapon, like the equivalent of 20th Century bazookas, RPG's, etc.

Re: OT: LAND WALKER -Japanese Robot suit-
 

To take out a mech, you don't need firepower - What you need is a rocket designed to push it over. Gravity will do the rest.