Who needs tanks?

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by Anthony

True, but you aren't going to do so without a good reason. Ultra-thick heels have no useful purpose, they just reduce your stability.

I said a turret on top of the helmet, not a helmet as a turret. A helmet is a turret. There's still no good reason to add more than an inch of height.

Sure there is: a modern motorcycle helmet adds at least 1 inch (and some are more), and the only reason they make them so thin is to reduce wind drag and decrease neck strain. If your battlesuit helmet is machine-supported, there's no reason not to make it as thick as you need.

Demi

[Joseph Paul]

Helms adding height - My SCA helms have generally added a fist width to my height. Part of that is the making of glancing surfaces. If you are working in thicker materials you may very well end up with as many or more inches added to the wearer. Additionally if the helm is only semi-articulated to the wearers head and he can turn his head in the helm then the helm will be even larger.

Low profile designs are nice but if you need to pack the electronics, sensors, and targetting gear in there it is going to get crowded pretty fast.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by ectropy

Plain old stilts increase walking/running speed to a surprising degree, and 2 feet is a pretty easy-to-learn height.

On what surface? Flat floor? I thought the decreased SR would be a killer in realistic terrain.

[RedRager]

To answer the OP's question: Tanks are much easier to hide then mecha.

To expand: Ever since the beginning of WWII heavy tanks are capable of defeating each other with one direct hit, and even a glancing blow will likely reduce functionality to a point where the tank is out of the fight for the rest of the battle. Man-portable Antitank weapons can similarly disable a tank, even if they can't kill it directly. Both aircraft weapons and artillery can demolish a tank even with a near-miss. Given all of this, why do tanks last in battle as long as they do?

The answer is a combination of sensors and smart tactics. Even in world war two, both sides were taking steps to improve the visibility of their tank crews while reducing the signature of their tanks - The first through periscopes and armored windows around hatches, and the second through camouflage and attempts to mask the exhaust emissions. In the modern day, this includes thermal imaging systems and broad-spectrum emissions control. Tactics, meanwhile, have remained largely unchanged - hide as much of the tank as possible behind dirt, while leaving only the turret exposed so that it can point at the enemy. Dirt, sand, or rock is much better armor than even the most advanced ceramics or alloys, usually because it's orders of magnitude thicker. Tanks are designed to take advantage of this: make the turret and tank as low as possible, with the gun mounted as high as possible, so you can expose as little as possible above the hill you're fighting behind.

Mecha can't do this. Even assuming relatively short mecha, they're still at least twice as tall as a comparable tank, with weapons mounted much lower down relative to their height than a tank's main gun. The result is that a mecha will almost always be silhouetted against something, making it easier to spot, easier to hit, and with fewer opportunities for cover that allow it to shoot back.

[Sarge]

Tanks are lower to the ground than Mecha. This makes them harder to spot, harder to target and easier to hide than Mecha.

Also if you have powered armor and man-portable subcritical nukes like they did in Starship Troopers (the book) then both Tanks and Mecha are a waste of time and resources.

[copeab]

A humanoid mecha can lie down behind things, you know. Or hide in ditches/trenches a tank couldn't.

[RedRager]

Originally Posted by copeab

A humanoid mecha can lie down behind things, you know. Or hide in ditches/trenches a tank couldn't.

Not really - Anything on the scale of that predicted in fiction is going to be pushing the structural limits with the ability to stand up, much less support itself in all the odd ways that a human can. Furthermore, there's no reason to assume that mecha will have the same flexibility as a human: Designing joints with the same range of motion, yet many, many orders of magnitude stronger is an incredible engineering challenge. It's not impossible, but it's going to make your mecha so expensive that almost every customer will be better off investing in an traditional tanks.

Even if we assume that a mecha has capabilities equivalent to a human, it's still going to be at much reduced fighting effectiveness lieing down: A tank's main gun can fire 360 degrees in it's lowest state, with it's smallest footprint. A mecha (or a prone human) is only going to be able to cover about a quarter of that - And that's with a much larger footprint compared to it's normal stature. It also takes time to get to that prone position, time which your giant, highly visible, yet oh-so-vulnerable mecha may not have. If you intend to have your mecha fight most of the time on it's stomach, why have a mecha as a primary combat vehicle in the first place, instead of a tank?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by RedRager

Not really - Anything on the scale of that predicted in fiction is going to be pushing the structural limits with the ability to stand up, much less support itself in all the odd ways that a human can. Furthermore, there's no reason to assume that mecha will have the same flexibility as a human: Designing joints with the same range of motion, yet many, many orders of magnitude stronger is an incredible engineering challenge. It's not impossible, but it's going to make your mecha so expensive that almost every customer will be better off investing in an traditional tanks.

Even if we assume that a mecha has capabilities equivalent to a human, it's still going to be at much reduced fighting effectiveness lieing down: A tank's main gun can fire 360 degrees in it's lowest state, with it's smallest footprint. A mecha (or a prone human) is only going to be able to cover about a quarter of that - And that's with a much larger footprint compared to it's normal stature. It also takes time to get to that prone position, time which your giant, highly visible, yet oh-so-vulnerable mecha may not have. If you intend to have your mecha fight most of the time on it's stomach, why have a mecha as a primary combat vehicle in the first place, instead of a tank?

I think we should be comparing SM+4 mecha to SM+4 tanks.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by ectropy

I know a couple of people with powerbocks. They're very impressive. If you can do something like that for a heavy battlesuit, then I imagine every heavy battlesuit would have them.
Even if they don't have the curved-spring form to them, mobility amplifiers (like those Russian piston-powered boots) would be extremely useful to anyone in a powered suit.

Plain old stilts increase walking/running speed to a surprising degree, and 2 feet is a pretty easy-to-learn height.

I actually started a thread asking about how to add them to power-armor, as I was discontented with Pulver's assertion that you couldn't up Move (much) on a set of power armor, only their jumping distance, and I looked to power bockers as a solution. Plus they look awesome.

I just disagree with the point that all extra height will come from the legs, and you can't add more than a couple of inches to someone in a set of power armor.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by copeab

A humanoid mecha can lie down behind things, you know. Or hide in ditches/trenches a tank couldn't.

Hull-down

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