Could mech suits ever be feasible weapons?

[D.B. Cooper]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So, yeah, could a mechanized outer layer rigged with guns and miniature rocket explosive be useful or worth the cost of building? Could they be even be built? In Iron Man they showed every stage of construction more or less and it looked plausible.

[Tacitursa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9k4oUNHLJs

Already being built.

But no i dont think so. They will be used for engineering purposes and such but not combat imo.

Biggest problem with a mech suit is weather. Travel in most terrain will cause alot of problems. They will be limited to a small ammount of battle fields and locations.

Mech + wet mud = Useless mech
Mech + snow = useless mech
Mech + desert = useless mech
Mech + water = usless mech
etc etc

Tanks will always be king of the ground. They can cover all terrain with ease and offer maximum protection and firepower something a mech will never have.

Plus we already have weapons that make mech's uneffective. EMP > Mech.

[Roman_Man#3]

Not to mention having to get an engine or battery small enough yet still able to power said mech suit..

[Morkonan]

Not to mention having to get an engine or battery small enough yet still able to power said mech suit..

Exactly.

A "mech suit" would be useful in any situation where physical activity or tools are necessary. However, it's all about the power...

Current military designs are still dependent upon large, bulky power supplies. When technology catches up to our imagination, I definitely believe some form of augmented armor will be standard issue for individual warfighters.

Of course, we may simply remove the human element from battlefields completely and it will be robots and cyborgs (linked to a human operator) that will conduct the nasty business of war. War could advance to the point where a human being would have to have access to critical augments in order to compete with automated fighting machines.

[D.B. Cooper]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9k4oUNHLJs

Biggest problem with a mech suit is weather. Travel in most terrain will cause alot of problems. They will be limited to a small ammount of battle fields and locations.

Mech + wet mud = Useless mech
Mech + snow = useless mech
Mech + desert = useless mech
Mech + water = usless mech
etc etc

I don't think weatherproofing is too hard, you're right about EMPs though.

Not to mention having to get an engine or battery small enough yet still able to power said mech suit..

True.

Hopefully anything resembling "arc reactor" technology isn't too far off.

[Tacitursa]

I don't think weatherproofing is too hard, you're right about EMPs though

Mech's are heavy

Mech in wet mud is gunna get stuck , same for snow.

Mech in desert is going to need some kind of AC Unit or the person inside will fry.

Mech in water will sink and will need some kind of water system etc.

Only way to solve those problems is using a very light weight carbon and that defeats the purpose of a mech considered .50 cal peirce tank armor.

Not to mention having to get an engine or battery small enough yet still able to power said mech suit..

True.

Hopefully anything resembling "arc reactor" technology isn't too far off.

Well we have nuclear fusion, just isnt perfected yet. There's a high tech science lab 3 miles from my house in England called UKAEA Culham it has the worlds largest and high tech magnetic fusion. The plasma fusion they create is about 5 times hotter than the sun and it create alot of power but they can only keep it active for a few seconds. If they can keep it stable we'll have infinite energy like the sun on earth and then hopefully they can create battery sized versions for all types of vehicles and such.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxTMi...om=PL&index=20

[frontier-auxilia]

just to use some military terminology here. Do you guys enjoy being fired at by a battalion size element with 125 mm machine guns, grenade the size of a car, rail guns and giant recoiless rockets? Certainly not me but as most people don't have enough cash to field, equip or maintain stuff like that its not really feasible to field mechs.

Nevertheless in the infinite wisdom of the proverb "never talking war on a spread sheet" i let reality decide. Hell back in the tanks, people think automatic assualt rifles, aeroplane, tanks and artillery as totally infeasible. Yet here they are.

[hellheaven1987]

Mech - no.

Power Armor - yes and already under research.

By the way, a machine uses 125mm calibre is not a "gun", but "cannon"; "gun" refers to weapon that uses below 100mm calibre.

[DisgruntledGoat]

Well we have nuclear fusion, just isnt perfected yet. There's a high tech science lab 3 miles from my house in England called UKAEA Culham it has the worlds largest and high tech magnetic fusion. The plasma fusion they create is about 5 times hotter than the sun and it create alot of power but they can only keep it active for a few seconds. If they can keep it stable we'll have infinite energy like the sun on earth and then hopefully they can create battery sized versions for all types of vehicles and such.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxTMi...om=PL&index=20

You don't quite understand how fusion will be used to create power. You can't have "fusion" batteries just as we can't have "fission" batteries now even though we have been creating fission reactors for decades. In the end fusion, just like fission, will be used as a heat source and thats it. A fusion nuclear reactor will function identically to a fission nuclear reactor. The fusion process will create the super heated plasma which will radiate intense amounts of heat. This heat will be used to create steam and that steam will turn steam turbines which creates electricity. So it can't be turned into batteries or anything like that. Unless said batteries have miniature steam turbines in them. Something tells me thats not going to happen.

[Mangalore]

I don't think weatherproofing is too hard, you're right about EMPs though.
....

You can make electronics more EMP resistant as well.


The main goal of that youtube prototype is to remove physical strain from the soldier, not make him bullet proof. I would think the main problem is power supply but is otherwise a pretty feasable concept.

I guess the question is wether such systems become available in any meaningful way before fully autonomous combat drones come into action removing the necessity of humans on the battlefield beyond command and control completely. I think that option will have far greater appeal in the long run because the number of body bags would drop sharply and none will ask how many robots got broken in the fighting.

The development in the AI field are kinda frightening and even semiautonomous systems would at least remove the necessity of human presence in the firing zone... What the few unlucky/crazy bastards wear who still walk about themselves in combat zones is however interesting.

[Helm]

Mechs would more likely take the form of gigantic land based aircraft carriers...

I'm going to be explaining how plasma weapons work again before long.

[GrnEyedDvl]

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/articl...-real-iron-man

Old news.

[Gelgoog]

mecha- robot controlled humanoid combat machines of a large size...yea I could see that.

exo-suits: designed to increase the endurance and strength of soldiers....of course.

men piloting giant mecha the size of small buildings....I highly doubt it.

As much of a gundam fan as I am, I do not see that kind of mecha ever roaming around.

The future of warfare has pretty much already been laid out. Future wars are mainly going to be conducted by drone armies with small units of men equiped with the latest in technology. Battlefields go from large amount of personnel roaming around to small surgical strike forces.

When you consider that it costs millions of dollars to train a soldier and pay their benefits and retirement. It makes more sense that you can instead build several robots who logistically do not need to be fed or housed. Losing 1000 robots is not going to get the headlines of losing 1000 soldiers. So yes, you will see mecha of sorts in the future, just not with a human pilot on board.

[hellheaven1987]

The future of warfare has pretty much already been laid out. Future wars are mainly going to be conducted by drone armies with small units of men equiped with the latest in technology. Battlefields go from large amount of personnel roaming around to small surgical strike forces.

When you consider that it costs millions of dollars to train a soldier and pay their benefits and retirement. It makes more sense that you can instead build several robots who logistically do not need to be fed or housed. Losing 1000 robots is not going to get the headlines of losing 1000 soldiers. So yes, you will see mecha of sorts in the future, just not with a human pilot on board.

I highly doubt that; besides a few nations, few countries today ever have that finance and technology to build and maintain that type of army. Hence, two situations may happen:

1. Either several nations combine together to get the resource to maintain that type of army.

or

2. A new form of warfare base on manpower forms.

All of these, however, is based on our present civilization would not wash away like what happened in late Bronze Age - classic of how barbarian beated high tech army to death.

[Tacitursa]

You don't quite understand how fusion will be used to create power. You can't have "fusion" batteries just as we can't have "fission" batteries now even though we have been creating fission reactors for decades. In the end fusion, just like fission, will be used as a heat source and thats it. A fusion nuclear reactor will function identically to a fission nuclear reactor. The fusion process will create the super heated plasma which will radiate intense amounts of heat. This heat will be used to create steam and that steam will turn steam turbines which creates electricity. So it can't be turned into batteries or anything like that. Unless said batteries have miniature steam turbines in them. Something tells me thats not going to happen

We already have liquid nuclear battleries being produced and other batteries. Look at this link http://www.physorg.com/news174139641.html It wont be long before we start working on plasma batteries. https://www.keshefoundation.com/pdfs/Batteries.pdf

[Don in the North]

a mech with a flame thrower can melt snow, and a mech with proper building can be waterproof, given some sort of water based proposion system and away you go. i dont see mechs being used in the desert though, the sand wouldnt be stable enough for its weight unless its low weight

[Morkonan]

... i dont see mechs being used in the desert though, the sand wouldnt be stable enough for its weight unless its low weight

You can stabilize and support anything as long as you have gravity, a compression-resistant surface and very, very, very large feet.

Though, I think giant mechas in clown shoes roaming the desert would be a bit depressing for their operators.

[Tankfriend]

Oh well... you wouldn't have to waste any ammo on your enemies then. They'll just laugh themselves to death. Not mentioning that those giant "shoes" could be a quite "pressing" issue for them as well.
But as was said in so many other mech threads, only the future will tell us whether or not someone will actually go so far as to build a real mech. Now power suits or exoskeletons are a different thing as those things are in development.

[CBR]

Mechs as in human sized exoskeletons yeah. The huge size monsters does not make any sense so no.

[Tacitursa]

a mech with a flame thrower can melt snow, and a mech with proper building can be waterproof, given some sort of water based proposion system and away you go. i dont see mechs being used in the desert though, the sand wouldnt be stable enough for its weight unless its low weight

Melting the snow are you serious? you'd need a million mech's with endless flame thrower fuel to melt the snow and then it will just snow again not to mention the water created would just turn the ground underneath into mud slurry creating even more problems for the mech in the first place.

It's pretty much impossible to keep a battle mech intact for water. Any bullets , explosions etc etc would seriously effect the water proofing of the mech or disable its water propulsion systems.

And as for AI robotic armies i think thats just a sci-fi fantasy. They would require an incredible ammount of programming and it would be almost impossible to fix errors and problems.

I think robots controlled remotely on a large scale has alot of problems also. What if terroists hack into them you'll have all kinds of problems.