axron27 wrote:My favorites are the comedies, Saber Marionette and recently Slayers. Being a military historian, even though I like the drama and plots of Evanglion and Gundam Wing I can't get past those 'mechs'. From a technical standpoint such weapon systems are throwbacks and totally impractical and their resemblance to the childish transformers is more than I can swallow. When designing tanks, for instance, the first point that a weapons designer needs to understand is that no weapon no matter how well protected has an antidote. Because of this concealment is as important as armor. The mechs are very high profile vehicles and thus make very large targets that would draw a tremendous amount of firepower. The transformers are even more absurd because what would be the merit of a 22nd or 23rd century fighting machine turning into a 20th century firetruck? those factors are impossible to ignore. That's as bad as the Starships on Star Trek powering all of their main systems from one source -hmm lower my defenses for a bit more speed? very dumb- Sci-Fi writers are hopeless romantics who are usually detached from scientific and physical reality -light sabers? swords are already obsolete for warfare- The comedy anime doesn't have to make sense. Wile E. Coyote can get mutilated and be as good as new the next scene and Lime can be an android and a living breathing woman simultaneously because SMJ is supposed to be absurd. Star Blazers at least used scientific theories to back up the Argo's capabilities and the guns -except the wave motion device- were served by magazines not by the engines and the ship had armor as well as shields so the bloody thing wasn't defenseless if the shields failed. Thank for letting me vent lol.
The reasons mechs were considered an asset was their mobility and adaptability to any terrain. Any weapon system is eventually countered by a counter system. Thats why tactics adapt to minimize the effectiveness of the counter systems. Even the much vaunted M1A1 Abrahms is vulnverable to anti tank fire from AP projectiles and AT missles. Thats why Cobras and Apaches provide cover and infantry tries to screen the tanks from AT missle crews. And like every weapons sytem ever invented new tactics will evolve to maximize its effectiveness and minimize its weaknesses.
Star Trek has its faults, such as never having invented a circuit breaker or surge protector. All of the ships equipment is energy based. You have a fixed amount ofg energy output. You can allocate energy to all the different systems but sometimes you have to pull from one system to enhance another. That tells me either the systems are consuming huge amounts of energy or the ships power output is a finite amount. I figure its a little of both.
Surely you have seen the new systems in development such as the high energy lasers that can shoot down missles and now even artillery shells. And the airborne laser system that can shoot down launching ballistic missles. So until the development of hyper velocity missles and shells with countermeasures( in the works) they are currently vulnerable.
I do agree with the lack of foresight that prevented the Federation from installing ablative armor or even hard shell armor or countermeasures until the Defiant frigates( DS9).
And the US Army has been researching into developing something similar to mecha. But dont expect to see 2 legged Gundams. The first ones will look more like the 4 legged AT-AT's from Star Wars.
Thre is also research into mobile body armor like Heavy Gear and the Elementals from Battletech.
Due to the cost and comparative ease of manufacture I dont think tanks will ever become obsolete, but in the near future they may have company.
