Tank VS Mech

[JTJSniperBee]

How about some heavy power armor?
View attachment 16568

boom A+

 

[sayerulz]

I think that the main role that mechs excel at is close range combat against infantry. Because they have much more freedom of movement than tanks, it is much easier for mechs to target fast moving things at close range. This allows them to circumvent one of the biggest problems that normal armored vehicles have, which is that they cannot hit infantry that are right up next to them. They also have to possibility of melee combat. This makes them better than tanks at short range against infantry. However, at long range and against armored vehicles, tanks are for better. A tank is faster, and can carry far more weight, allowing them to mount heavier weapons and armor. A tank chassis is also far more stable than a two legged platform, and so a tank can easily handle recoil that would topple a humanoid mech of the same weight. This would restrict most mech weapons to recoil-free or low recoil weapons, rather than cannon, which means that they will tend not to be all that effective against armored targets, unless of course they use powerful energy weapons. Tanks lower profile also makes them far easier to hide. The other area I can see mechs being used rather than tanks is in insanely large vehicles where the added ground clearance that legs give is needed to get over various obstacles. These seem impractical anyway though. Of course, this is all moot in starmade since mechs and tanks are both just small, weak spaceships.

 

[JTJSniperBee]

I think that the main role that mechs excel at is close range combat against infantry. Because they have much more freedom of movement than tanks, it is much easier for mechs to target fast moving things at close range. This allows them to circumvent one of the biggest problems that normal armored vehicles have, which is that they cannot hit infantry that are right up next to them. They also have to possibility of melee combat. This makes them better than tanks at short range against infantry. However, at long range and against armored vehicles, tanks are for better. A tank is faster, and can carry far more weight, allowing them to mount heavier weapons and armor. A tank chassis is also far more stable than a two legged platform, and so a tank can easily handle recoil that would topple a humanoid mech of the same weight. This would restrict most mech weapons to recoil-free or low recoil weapons, rather than cannon, which means that they will tend not to be all that effective against armored targets, unless of course they use powerful energy weapons. Tanks lower profile also makes them far easier to hide. The other area I can see mechs being used rather than tanks is in insanely large vehicles where the added ground clearance that legs give is needed to get over various obstacles. These seem impractical anyway though. Of course, this is all moot in starmade since mechs and tanks are both just small, weak spaceships.

yeah. but to counter recoil. Why not 6 Legs

 

[sayerulz]

yeah. but to counter recoil. Why not 6 Legs

It would help, but it would still be more finicky than a tank, and would lose some of the advantages that a mech provides. Four or six legged vehicles seem primarily good for their all terrain ability, meaning that their main role would be operations on very rough terrain. On more flat, open ground, tanks would still be better, since they are faster and would be able to take more of a beating.

 

[Mork2]

Well for the purposes of effectiveness in starmade mechs aren't to bad probably due to boxdims. Also high accelerations aren't really required when your trying to hug the ground and not bounce, trip, collide etc....

You do have the you are taller harder to hide problem. But the planet plates should allow you to use the borders as cover. On the other hand the larger height and spread out nature of a mech means it will be easier to fit effective power generators inside. Though effective armour compared to a tank is harder. At a guess you will have to be more vunerable to opponents in your rear or side arcs than a similar mass tank.

To make mechs effective you would like a tank put your advanced armour over the front, mostly the chest area/critical areas. You can put your power lines in the fake legs and arms. Use basic hull or better yet mesh/scaffolding or motherboards all mass 0.01 on the rear faces.

As for configuration use the lower chest and legs as the main vehicle. Put forward weapons and main propulsion there. Use the upper body as horizontal rotation turret part and one or both of the arms as the vertical part of the turret. This will also allow you a good set of power generators as the upper torso set of power generators can run down the offhand arm. A tanks turret will have limited room for power generator dimensions unless its running them down the barrel with the weapon. Considering how dangerous vertical launched swarm missiles would be I would suggest the head be an anti missile turret or have them mounted on the shoulders. The back of the shoulders can contain your own vertical launched swarm missiles, probably need to wireless link them from the main body to fire them. Or you could connect shoulder pods to arms and have the VLS missiles as AI controlled lock on missiles as well as the arm weapons. Also with some ingenuity you could have the neck section contain a camera from your main body giving you a view from high on your mech and will help with the 3rd person view with less of your mech in your scrolled out camera view while moving like that. This will also allow you to keep most of your mech below the terrain LOS hopefully.

You could put warheads on the end of a lance on the offarm with power reactors running down the length. It would be risky if you collided it into something. On the other hand it doesn't use power and it ignores shields....Good for a really close in attack rush in and collide. Just make sure its far enough from the main body when it goes boom.

I'm starting to get interesting in building a mech for the first time.

 

[Lightning312]

An interesting theory I had is that the mech might not be developed for the sole purpose of earth-based ground combat. Think of the Gundam series (except 00): in all of them, the mech is a hybrid space/ground combat vehicle. It might be that the mech is the type of vehicle best able to operate in BOTH gravity and null-gravity environments. Yes, it would be outclassed by weapons such as tanks or fighters that are built specifically for those environments, but the mech would be the only one capable of transitioning between the two.

Consider the rotational tube space colony. Only a dual-purpose vehicle such as a mech could enter the colony from space, operate in the null/low-gravity center of the colony, and then transition to the high-gravity circumference of the colony.

Or you could build a flying tank. That would probably work too.

 

[MacThule]

Ideally, a mech and a tank of the same mass when facing off, the tank would win.

Terrain is the big issue here. In rough terrain (hills, mountains, valleys, boulder-strewn plains, and as you note urban landscapes) mechs have a powerful advantage in mobility, speed and the ability to quickly gain high ground advantage. Even in flat terrain, if a mech can jump at all that gives it a huge advantage of being able to move quickly along a plane tanks cannot move and have only limited ability to even fire.

I believe the general rule of warfighting IRL today is combined arms, so tanks + mechs supporting each other and each compensating for the other's weaknesses. Likely this would be better than a mono-force of only tanks or only mechs.

 

[JTJSniperBee]

Well for the purposes of effectiveness in starmade mechs aren't to bad probably due to boxdims. Also high accelerations aren't really required when your trying to hug the ground and not bounce, trip, collide etc....

You do have the you are taller harder to hide problem. But the planet plates should allow you to use the borders as cover. On the other hand the larger height and spread out nature of a mech means it will be easier to fit effective power generators inside. Though effective armour compared to a tank is harder. At a guess you will have to be more vunerable to opponents in your rear or side arcs than a similar mass tank.

To make mechs effective you would like a tank put your advanced armour over the front, mostly the chest area/critical areas. You can put your power lines in the fake legs and arms. Use basic hull or better yet mesh/scaffolding or motherboards all mass 0.01 on the rear faces.

As for configuration use the lower chest and legs as the main vehicle. Put forward weapons and main propulsion there. Use the upper body as horizontal rotation turret part and one or both of the arms as the vertical part of the turret. This will also allow you a good set of power generators as the upper torso set of power generators can run down the offhand arm. A tanks turret will have limited room for power generator dimensions unless its running them down the barrel with the weapon. Considering how dangerous vertical launched swarm missiles would be I would suggest the head be an anti missile turret or have them mounted on the shoulders. The back of the shoulders can contain your own vertical launched swarm missiles, probably need to wireless link them from the main body to fire them. Or you could connect shoulder pods to arms and have the VLS missiles as AI controlled lock on missiles as well as the arm weapons. Also with some ingenuity you could have the neck section contain a camera from your main body giving you a view from high on your mech and will help with the 3rd person view with less of your mech in your scrolled out camera view while moving like that. This will also allow you to keep most of your mech below the terrain LOS hopefully.

You could put warheads on the end of a lance on the offarm with power reactors running down the length. It would be risky if you collided it into something. On the other hand it doesn't use power and it ignores shields....Good for a really close in attack rush in and collide. Just make sure its far enough from the main body when it goes boom.

I'm starting to get interesting in building a mech for the first time.

k i like dat u got an idea

 

[JTJSniperBee]

Boop.EXE loaded. Done!

Boop.

 

[EricBlank]

I've been thinking about power armor a bit. I made a 3^3 "golem" armored suit already, and a transport skiff for them. Very small, can operate in enclosed spaces with infantry such as in space station assaults. Not very fast on the ground, unfortunately. Advanced armor is kicking rad for slowing you down :P

Next plan was a mobile artillery platform (and turret platform!) on four legs and a main battle tank. Mechs come later. I can see some use for them but planetary assault doesn't have much place in starmade anyway, with most servers I'm aware of banning or restricting planetary access and planets themselves being tiny and more easily bombarded than controlled from the ground

 

[Tunk]

With slabs power armour and ground vehicles are going to get more awesome.

 

[Mariux]

I prefer tanks but maybe just because I like cars. Mechs are also nice.

 

[Master_Artificer]

What about powered armor vs Mechs?

 

[Tunk]

I'd rather be the man sized tank than the tank sized man.

 

[RedDwarfIV]

No thread derailing intended:
But is it not cooler to see our dashing hero pilot his tiny starfighter against the enemies giant "murder death machine" and having some one on his tail that he cant shake without performing some fancy flying maneuvers that almost look like he would be affected by an atmosphere.
When in reality he could just engage his position thrusters to turn his ship 180° while still flying in his original direction and fire at the enemy.
Or that capital ships have to be slow and have a strange tendency to behave like naval ships, while there is no reason for them not to be as fast (or even faster depending on how long they have been accelerating) than the fighter.

Babylon 5 did exactly that. Star Furies were often seen to rotate around to hit targets, or otherwise fly like a real space fighter would. Battlestar Galactica Reimagined did it too - I'm pretty sure it was Starbuck's favourite maneuver.

Back on topic, though, tanks, tanks, tanks. Mechs are not worth the trouble. I've only ever had two mechs in my stories/settings. One was supposed to operate in the arctic where tanks could be expected to get stuck in snow drifts, stopped by boulders and fall into large ditches (see the Top Gear arctic special, where a Toyota Hilux spent days getting through the ice boulder field, and when Clarkson tried to go fast, he broke the thing.) The other had propellers like a V-22 Osprey, so it could fly as well as walk.